For His Own Good

By E-Type.

Herein lies the Disclaimer. I don't own any of the characters portrayed in this story, I just borrowed them for a little while. Their respective owners can have them back when I'm done. No money is going to be made off of this anyway. Also, this story idea was found at http://ranko.anifics.com. It is listed under the The Dead Fiance. Everything other than the idea is written by me. Thanks to Seaver for prepreading much of this for me.




Chapter 1

The stars extended outward for almost limitless amounts of space, the universe's giant black velvet display case for its jewels, otherwise known as suns. Ranma lay upon the roof of the Tendo dojo, wondering if he would ever get the chance to see what may be up there. He doubted he ever would, he seemed to be forever trapped by things that were well beyond his control, that wouldn't get him killed. Sometimes he really wished something might happen that would be good. That didn't happen nearly as often as he thought it would. There was that time after the wedding that Ryoga had come by and hadn't greeted him with the phrase 'PREPARE TO DIE, RANMA'. In fact, he had just waived him down, shuffled his feet and asked if he could be led home. He got a letter a month ago that his parents were going to be trying to head home, and he figure that they might be close to getting there about then.

Ranma just smiled and eagerly led him over to it. He had always wondered how they managed to have any kids given their family curse, but he supposed that they might be able to estimate how long it might take them to get somewhere, if they were ever actually honest with themselves. As it appeared Ryoga might actually be doing. He wondered what might have happened to him in order to get him to change. Maybe it would be better if he didn't ask. Given what he had already been through that hadn't managed to get through his thick head it might be something that he didn't want to know about.

They arrived quickly, and the first thing that Ranma noticed was that there did seem to actually be other people there. That was something that was really amazing. Ranma had to wonder how long it had been since there had been more than one person in that house. Oh yeah, he remembered. That was when Akane and Akari had both come over to see him and he had tried to keep them from knowing that another girl was at his house for some reason. Course, it hadn't helped that Onna-Ranma had been there trying to get him into trouble with the girls. Neither one of them had been doing all that good that day.

Ranma let Ryoga off at his front door, knowing that it would take him at least a little while before he managed to get himself lost again. Then he would show up at the Tendo dojo again and be led over here. Ranma smirked in amusement. He wondered how closely he had actually predicted the future. Not that he knew if he had also managed to get his direction curse reduced or something. Ranma smiled as he walked away, hoping that things would start to go good for the lost boy from then on. He hadn't had much to live with up till that point. Now he had his house and his family, hopefully he would progress from there. But that was all in the past. Ranma had to figure out what he was going to do with the his future.

Running the dojo with Akane just didn't seem like it was something he wanted to do with his life for some reason. Even though he had been raised to have this as his only goal in life he couldn't help but feel that things would be better if was doing something else. The only problem with that conclusion was he had no idea what that other thing might be. He had searched as far and long as he could in hopes of finding something that would spark his interest, but so far there was nothing.

So he sat, gazing up at the stars as if that was somehow going to show him what he should be doing with his life. Looking over to the west he noticed there seemed to be a lot few stars over that way. That was when he also noticed that there were flashes of light coming over that way. Except those didn't really look like natural lighting. Stretching his senses Ranma noticed that there was a LOT of power being given off over there. But he couldn't really tell how much power. He couldn't understand it. He could sense where everybody fighting was, he got a general idea of what was fighting what, but he had no idea what was actually happening. That should have been the first thing that he could tell, given he was so good at sensing ki.

Ranma frowned as he leapt of the roof and started heading over toward where the flashes were coming from. It seemed to be a park not far from them. Accelerating he tried another probe but got the same baffling results. There must be some ki that they were using to get flashes of light that big, he couldn't understand what was going on. He supposed he would find out soon enough.


Setsuna Meiou, aka Sailor Pluto, frowned. This really shouldn't have been that hard of a fight for the Sailor Senshi than it was turning out to be. She couldn't understand what was going on but their attacks either were reduced in power or their enemy had somehow increased its strength by a substantial margin. There really was, hopefully, no other explanation for it. If there were that meant that she had completely missed something at the time gates, or it had told her something was wrong. That was something she refused to believe. Her future self had said that there was going to be nothing happening for some time that would require her interference, but maybe she had gotten the dates wrong or something this time. She knew she sometimes did make mistakes, but given that she could travel through time, it was a very easy thing to correct said mistakes before anything became of them. Maybe one had finally gotten through the cracks.

She was just preparing to teleport to the brawl when she felt an immense power approaching. Not sure if it was friendly or hostile Pluto decided to change her original teleportation destination to behind the quickly moving power in hopes of determining its intentions before it reached the actual battle. With a flash Setsuna appeared behind a red and black blur, gaping in astonishment at how quickly it was moving. She hadn't expected it to be going nearly this fast when she had first sensed it. Recovering quickly she headed off after it, having to use a surprising amount of magic to catch up to what Setsuna assumed was a man wearing a red shirt and black pants. As she approached she couldn't help but notice how gracefully he moved even at their current speeds.

She could sense no evil intentions from him, but she couldn't detect any good intentions either. It seemed he was just going to check out what was going on. Pluto wasn't' sure what type of conclusions he would reach upon finding several girls in modified school fuku's fighting a winged man that threw fire around with the greatest of ease. He had said his name was the Phoenix King and that he would be taking over the world starting with Tokyo. It had unnerved the Senshi at first at his incredible speed and what seemed to almost unlimited power. What really got them going, however, was the fact that he looked so handsome, and had the wings of an angel, but when he laughed they all came to the sad conclusion that he was definitely working for agents of the dark. Although, as Sailor Pluto sensed from the battle now, he seemed to be about as strong as some of the bosses that they had had to face since they began defending the world.

Just as Setsuna was about to catch him she heard him say a few words. "Impossible. How could he be here? And who is that behind me?"

The last phrase was met with Ranma suddenly starting to run fast. Those words also caused Sailor Pluto to stumble to a halt. That had sounded like...Ranma! Her eyes glazed over at the fond memories she had of him until she realized what was probably going to happen if she had let that relationship go any farther. She was lonely on Pluto yes, but that didn't give her any excuse to try and drag somebody else off with her to share the boredom. Or in his case, relieve the boredom. She had had to sever that connection with him for good, and could only hope for the best for him in his future life.

The other thing that stunned her was that he had known who the Sailor Scouts were facing. Setsuna herself had never seen the being before, and she wasn't sure what to make of him. But what really amazed her was that he had managed to detect that she was following him. Admittedly she had gotten pretty close to him, but still, he could tell that she was there when they were still a good 20 feet apart. Setsuna didn't know much about Ranma's life, she had decided that she would get to know him like normal people did and have a normal relationship, or as normal as possible anyway. It had worked too. She had met Ranma, gotten to know him better and really wanted to have a proper relationship with him. But then the business with the Sailor Scouts had started up again and she had had to give him up in order to protect him from the lunacy that was their world. She had cried long and hard over that. Sailor Pluto had only really ever wanted one thing just for herself, and that was a little companionship. Was that so much to ask for? In the end though, as had happened so many times in the past, her duty had come first and she had severed all ties to him, not even checking on him with the time gate, not wanting to know anything more about him than she did, for fear of either wanting to continue the relationship or changing how she viewed the young man. She cherished the time that she had been able to spend with him and wouldn't trade it for anything. Except, maybe, another chance with him. But she knew the impossibility of that. She seemed to be forever destined to be alone, and it tore her heart when she thought about it.

Someday, she was sure, there would be somebody that she could spend forever with. Indeed, with her it was going to be pretty close to forever, given how long she had already, and was going to live. But that was all for later. The Senshi of Time had to figure out what she was going to do about the current situation. Sprinting forward once again she realized that he was going to get to the fight before she was going to catch back up to him, unless she teleported. But that might not be a good idea so close to the fight, the enemy might be able to detect her usage of magic and either try and attack her with her back turned or attack the person that she was fairly certain was Ranma. While she knew that he was an amazingly talented martial artist, she also knew that there was no way he could possibly help out in their battles. Especially this one. It was taxing all of them pretty good and Sailor Pluto was fairly certain that after she got Ranma to go away she would have to get involved with the fight, something that she never really did. Or hadn't ever needed to in the past.

She caught up to the man, who was indeed Ranma, right after he had entered the edge of the clearing that the fight was happening in. He stood there transfixed, taking in the sight of seven girls fighting a winged man that seemed to be a Phoenix. He shook himself out of the daze and started walking forward. Setsuna gasped in surprise. She had been fairly certain that when he had seen what they were facing he would have run away or stayed hidden from the sheer violence and the amazing amount of fireballs and magical attacks running around in the area.

She started to go after him when the enemy happened to dodge an attack that brought him much closer to Ranma than he had been before. With a snarl Ranma launched himself into the air, striking the man in the side of the head twenty feet off he ground, sending the both of them downward. Ranma landed on his feet, the bird man landed on his side but leapt vertical quickly.

Everybody there, especially Setsuna thought he would start laughing again before throwing insults and trash talk at the new fighter like he had every time before one of them had actually managed to hit him. Instead he seemed to go white and get downright scared. Then Ranma spoke.

"Saffron, what are you doing here?"

All the Senshi blinked. That wasn't what he had said his name was. Then they blinked again. He had never actually told them his name, just who he worked for and that he was a Phoenix that they had no hope of defeating.

Saffron seemed to be having trouble talking so Ranma took a step toward him when everybody there noticed that the air around Ranma seemed to be getting colder and denser.

"I'll ask again, Saffron. What are you doing here?"

He finally gathered his wits enough to respond. "I am serving my lord, gathering energy for the coming crisis." Importance dripped from his words. Ranma ignored it completely.

"Uh huh. Last time you tried this I had to kill you myself. Obviously you grew to adulthood again much faster than the first time. Why is that, Saffron? Did you make a deal with somebody like Happosai did?"

Saffron sputtered in outrage while Setsuna gaped. Ranma had killed him once already? And he was a Phoenix god? That should be impossible! But even Saffron wasn't disputing it, so it must be true. Now the only question was, would he be willing to talk to her again, especially given their pasts. Oh, she could only pray and hope.

"I'll have you know I am nothing like that perverted idiot. I have a plan that I am going to carry out, whether you try and stop me or not. Now be on your way before I have to kill you." Ranma smirked at him, causing the bird man to start fidgeting a little. His intelligence was down a bit from when he was a god, now he was part god part evil minion. All evil minions had to have reduced intelligence in order to actually follow orders without questioning them, so that was what was done. That didn't make them pleasant to deal with.

"Sure, whatever. Look, I'm going to ask this nicely only once. If you don't stop what your doing right now and go back to Jusendo then I'm going to have to kill you again, and hopefully make sure you stay that way this time. I'm not going to let you go around and start doing evil every time you come back to life. Even if your village will die without your energy. I don't see you helping them right now, do I?" Ranma said.

Saffron glared at him, his aura of fire flaring around him impressively. Impressive to everybody but Ranma. He sneered. "You trying to impress me or something, Saffron? You're not any stronger than when I fought you on Phoenix Mountain. What are you doing trying to challenge me again? Think that Akane not being here is going to make a difference or something?" He crossed his arms over his chest as he let his own aura burst forth, the blue energy swirling grandly around his body. "Let me tell you something; I've been through a lot since I fought with you, and I've gotten a whole lot better. What were you thinking sticking to your regular bag of tricks, huh?"

Ranma dropped into a loose stance, his aura condensing around him. "Enough talk. If you won't go back to your master and tell them all to forget this stupid plan about taking over the world using Negaverse energy than I'm just going to have to destroy you too."

Saffron got into his own stance, hovering in the air, building his power. "And who did you take out? If it was Happosai than I should thank you for getting rid of your master in the Arts. He was a detriment to the plan and not contributing anything worthwhile."

"I'm telling you, I'm not going to let you or the people you work for harm anybody else again. Now fight!" With that Ranma leapt into the air, seeming to hover there for several long seconds as he barraged the Phoenix God turned evil general with near Amagurikan speed, but much greater strength, punches and kicks. He had managed to increase his speed in the Amagurikan to over double what he could do previously, besting Cologne at her own technique. Now he could fight normally at close to the speed he reached when he had first learned it. Among many other skills that he had learned when he had traveled with Ryoga for a while. That had been an amazing trip. They had been places that Ranma was sure weren't on the same Earth that they were from. Especially when they had run into that guy named Goku. Ranma was fairly certain he would have noticed if anybody that powerful was living on the planet when he had powered up if they were in the same universe. But he had picked up a couple of handy techniques from the guy that he planned on putting to good use in this fight that he didn't have when he had first gone up against Saffron. The only thing he would have to watch out for he guessed was the fact that he had managed to gain to full power this time instead of getting himself let out of the shell early. And was also feeding off of the dark energy in the area. That was something that seemed to be a constant theme of all the dark energy attacks that he had fended off in Nerima. He had seen the Sailor Senshi doing the same thing in Juuban, but none of them seemed to realize what was going on in his own district so he had taken it upon himself, along with a couple other of the neighborhood martial artists to take the things down whenever they heard about them. For the most part it had seemed to be surprisingly easy to do, but some of the things had managed to have a particular ability that would confuse one or the other and they would have to call in help to deal with the demon or whatever it was. But they had always pulled through without the Senshi's help. Course, Ranma couldn't blame them. After all, he was the best and they obviously had their own problems to deal with in their district. He just found it odd that they had managed to get over to his own for this battle. He had figured Saffron was going to go after him when he had finally gotten his powers back a few years from now, but not this soon. Especially not working for the bad guys. Saffron must have been really desperate to get back at him to actually sell his services to the dark universe. Unless that had been what he had wanted. These things always seemed to pop up around him. Trouble would just lead to bigger trouble that would lead to a huge fight. As was happening here.

Finally landing back on the ground he looked up at Saffron and smirked at him as he healed his wounds. They were numerous, and it took him several moments to pull himself back together. At that the God took a huge gout of flame and launched it at his opponent. Ranma returned fire, shouting out "Ka-me-ha-me-HA!" before releasing a beam of energy that easily eclipsed the flame heading towards him. The energy beam smashed through the fire attack to impact with Saffron's chest, hurtling him backward several hundred feet.

Picking himself off the ground Saffron glared rusty daggers at the pig tailed martial artist while once again healing himself, popping his collapsed chest back to normal dimensions. "All right you little pest, if you want a fight then I'll give you a fight." Once again his aura flared up around him, but this time it was fire with a liberal dose of black smoke writhing between the flames. Ranma's eyes widened slightly at seeing that. He was obviously far more powerful than he had ever faced while in Nerima. Now he would see what one of those monsters could really do with all that energy that they were stealing.

Sailor Mercury was boggling at the readings she was getting from the two fighters. While Saffron was now definitely radiating dark energy along with his normal power, something that had given the girls pause when they had first encountered the bird man, this new fellow that was fighting him was easily putting out as much energy, but it was something that her computer was having trouble getting a good reading on. It wasn't magic, it wasn't dark energy, but beyond that it was having trouble telling her what it was, just that it was incredibly strong and hope that it didn't turn against them after it fought with Saffron.

Setsuna wasn't doing much better. She had thought that by getting out of his life she would have allowed him to live a more peaceful and normal one. Apparently, such was not the case, given he already knew who Saffron was before he had been reborn to work for the Negaverse (Setsuna had been doing some research while everybody had been talking. She had gotten back right before the actual fighting had started.) That was another thing that really amazed her. She had never seen so much power from just about anybody and it baffled her how he could have gotten so much. The only Senshi that could really rival him was Saturn, but he had an almost infinite more control over it than she did. After this fight was over, Sailor Pluto decided that some introductions and questions needed to be passed around. Then the only item would be to reveal herself to him or not. She wasn't sure if he had loved her or not, but she knew now that she had loved him. All she had to do was go and check the time gates and then she could find out what he was thinking about, but she really didn't want to do that. She hadn't done it to him since she had first met him, and she didn't want to start now. But that was the whole point. Something for herself, not for her duties, certainly not to help her defend the place, although from what she was seeing he would certainly help things along.

Now that she thought about it, she supposed that that was one of the reasons that she had left him so long ago. Well, another reason to convince herself to let him go. He could have been used to get at her, and given how strong her feelings were for the then much younger Ranma she wasn't sure if she could let anything happen to him, not matter the consequences might be. But now all that had changed. Pluto certainly didn't have to worry about him being kidnapped. Even if he did, there was little certainty in her mind that once he woke up, there would be a reckoning.

The two fighters exchanged blows at a mind boggling rate, disappearing from sight for long moments before they reappeared somewhere else, one or the other sporting a series of bruises. Ranma was sweating a little from the strain. Saffron wasn't any better, he was just using a lot more power than he had the first time they fought. Using it to increase his speed instead of wasting it all on blasts that could be easily avoided. Ranma was returning the favor, but it was costing him, since he couldn't heal his wounds as fast as Saffron did. But he could see that the Phoenix god was tiring out. Ranma wasn't sure if he should freeze him again or just beat him until he couldn't move anymore. Both were valid options, but given how much dark energy was emanating off of him, Ranma figured he would have to kill him in the end. If not here and now, then later after he healed and tried to do the same thing again. That was the main thing Ranma had learned while fighting those monsters in Nerima. Unless you killed them they would forever come back to haunt you. Ranma hadn't killed anybody until Saffron, and had been determined not to do so again, but when he realized what would happen if he let them roam free after he defeated them he decided that he didn't have any choice in the matter and started wiping the floor with them. Once they started adapting to his style he had been forced to come up with and use new and varied techniques against the creatures to keep them guessing so they couldn't trap him with his own moves. It was tiring, especially when they decided to attack in the middle of the night, but he never really complained. Ranma could tell how much better he was getting every time he ran into Ryoga. The guy didn't really spend all that much time training while he was running around the country side trying to find him again, so it was nice to know that he stayed fairly consistent from one bought to the next. But Ranma just kept right on improving. Now he had gotten to the point where he could actually hurt Ryoga with just one punch. But that wasn't any fun, so he had started to train Ryoga whenever the lost boy had been around, in the hopes of getting himself a steady sparring partner. The usual DIE RANMA line was getting rather old, but one works with what one has.

Setsuna could tell that something wasn't right about the fight. Ranma should have been able to defeat the creature fairly easily, but Pluto could tell that he was holding back in his fights so as not to kill him. That she couldn't understand. He had said that he had killed him once already, and couldn't figure out why they hadn't done so again already. Then it suddenly hit her. Ranma wasn't like one to just kill people, even if they were working for the enemy. She smiled warmly, a reaction that, if any of the Senshi had noticed her hiding in the shadows, would have caused all of them to faint in shock.

Ranma was having enough of Saffron and his mouth. He had decided to see if he could just wear the guy out and try and get him off the dark side, but obviously that wasn't going to happen. Saffron gathered another huge blast of fire in his hands and hurled it at Ranma, dashing after the blast to strike him when he dodged. Ranma saw it coming and decided that it was time to end the fight, even if he did have to kill him again.

Forming his Soul of Ice around him into a protective shell, the fire blast impacted it and fizzled out. Which was almost unbelievable feat given how strong that fire had been. Saffron came barreling in, his air now off since Ranma hadn't moved. The pig tailed martial artist intercepted his flying kick and, after a quick 15 hit combo, sent him hurtling back the way he came.

"Hiryu Shoten Ha!" Ranma shouted as a tornado no bigger than his arm spiraled out and pierced Saffron's side, exploding out the back of his body like he wasn't even there. When the tornado died down Saffron collapsed to the ground, his body quickly healing but taking all of his energy to seal up a hole that big. Ranma reapplied his Soul of Ice and dashed over to him, hoping to freeze him over so he could shatter him again. Hopefully he wouldn't come back this time.

Before he could reach the Phoenix god a voice shouted out behind him. "Wait! Let me try something first!" Ranma glanced over his shoulder to see one of the Sailor Scouts that he had seen, he thought it was probably Sailor Moon, the leader, waving at him while magical energy gathered around her. Having had bad experiences with magic in the past Ranma quickly got out of her way, wondering if she was just going to kill him or if she had something else planned so that he wouldn't die. He had heard from various people that she could cure somebody that had been possessed by the dark energy, but he wasn't sure if Saffron was possessed or going along willingly.

She did a little dance that didn't seem to take nearly as long as it should have before she shouted out her attack. "Moon healing activation!" A giant pink heart shot from her and impacted with Saffron. Ranma blinked in surprise, not only due to the strange way it was delivered, but by the sheer power of the attack as he had felt it fly by him. That girl packed some serious power!

Ranma returned his attention back to what was happening with Saffron and was amazed. He was growing younger even as they watched, before he returned to his infant stage and everybody could see the dark energy leave him. Ranma looked a little startled at that. This had all started when he had first killed him? He had decided to go with the dark side way back then? Or could it have been that he died with such rage in his heart that he was easily corrupted? That made a bit more sense from what he could understand of these things, but it still didn't make everything right. Kiima was going to kill him. She was going to have to raise the god again. That can't be an easy task, he could just imagine all the trouble a kid with his powers could get into.

Speaking of the bird lady he could sense her approaching from he sky. He turned to face the direction that she would be coming while noting that there was another person hiding in the trees off to the side, even though the energy he felt seemed like it would be another of the Sailor Scouts. It made him wonder why one of them would be hiding. Maybe it was for backup or something. Or just to observe. The few times that he had seen the girls fight on TV he had noticed that the one in blue always seemed to be analyzing everything that the others did in order to figure out their strategy. He couldn't ever really remember her getting involved in a fight. Oh well, he had other concerns. Like what that mysterious scout was doing in the trees, what he was going to tell the Scouts now that he had revealed himself and what he knew, and worst of all, what he was going to tell Akane when she saw him with all these scantily clad high school girls. Ranma shivered at the thought.

Kiima had obviously been training, for it didn't take nearly as long as Ranma thought it would for her to alight above the battle field, her wings gently flapping behind her as she surveyed the battle area. As soon as she spotted her Lord rolling around in the dirt she dived at him, sweeping him into her arms before gently settling onto the ground, her feet not kicking up a trace of dust. She glances around briefly before spotting Ranma. In moments she is before him, regarding him cooly while trying to figure out if she should thank him or shout at him. Ranma opens his mouth before she can figure it out.

"I didn't actually have to kill him this time, somebody did this crazy attack that involved a 9 foot wide pink heart and released all the dark energy that had been in him. Apparently this happened right after I had killed him the first time. I didn't know he would have given himself over to evil simply to get his revenge on me. Sorry about all this." Kiima's eyes were shimmering and she looked like she was about to start crying.

"It's not your fault." She said. "I...wasn't the best mother to him when he was growing up, especially since he's supposed to protect all of us when we need help. But how could he do that if he couldn't even stop a sixteen year old kid?" Kiima did start crying at this point, clutching the once again baby Saffron to her chest. Ranma was starting to worry about the kid a little, he looked like he might be getting his air cut off. Most of them women Ranma knew seemed to do that when they gave big hugs. It was something that he had eventually gotten used to, but still. Saffron was just a baby. She suddenly looked up and stared Ranma in the eyes, a determination there that signified good things to come.

Kiima continued. "Unlike most mothers, I'm going to be getting a second chance. One that I won't mess up. I won't!" Ranma reached out and adjusted baby Saffron slightly in her arms, preventing the tyke from suffocating. The Saotome heir put an arm around her shoulders in comfort, walking with her to the edge of the clearing they had created in the battle.

"This time, hopefully, he'll grow up at the normal pace a god-king should, leaving you enough time to ingrain all those good traits that kings should have before he inherits the throne. Right?" Ranma said.

Kiima nodded enthusiastically. Ranma was relieved. He had thought for a moment that she was going to try and make him raise him, to see if he could have done a better job. "I'll make sure he's the perfect little angel, even if I have to beat some sense into him." Ranma smiled. That sounded like it actually might work. The winged woman suddenly returned Ranma's embrace, squashing her young charge between them. Nobody noticed until they had separated, Kiima blushing slightly. Warrior women weren't supposed to give big thank you hugs to those that defeated ones master. But she just couldn't help it.

Ranma patted her shoulder and smiled. "Take him back to Phoenix mountain and get him into shape. Don't let anything evil happen to him and everybody should be fine. Heck, let him train all he wants. It's been a while since I've had a sparring partner that was a real challenge. Maybe when he reaches his full potential we can have a real match, one that doesn't have life or death struggles in the middle of it. Those get old after you do it once or twice."

Kiima's eyes widened slightly at that. "You mean you've done this more than For His Own Good 09 once?"

Ranma chuckled. "Yeah, just not with Saffron. You wouldn't believe how many evil villains there are that just pop up around me. I couldn't believe how many creatures those guys can create of so short a period of time. Makes me give a little more respect to the Sailor Senshi. They live in the center of monster attacks, I just seem to get everything that doesn't have room to fit in Juuban." He smiled cockily at her. "Not that I can't handle it, I'm the best after all."

Kiima shook her head at his ego, but she did have to admit that she hadn't ever seen anyone better yet, and there had been a lot of challengers. Someday she knew it would happen, she just had no idea when it could possibly be, given how quickly he learned things. "I'm going to go home before Saffron gets hungry. Take care Ranma, I hope I don't see to much more of you or something will have gone wrong again." She said, her face a mixture of humor and seriousness.

Ranma smiled and returned the expression, waving at her as she took to the skies, heading for home. To do things right. Ranma felt the presence of the Sailor Scouts behind him, probably having heard most of his conversation with Kiima. He would imagine they'd have some questions for him. He wasn't looking forward to this, but they deserved some answers since an enemy of his past had come and almost killed them. That presence in the trees was still making him wonder though. Why hadn't she joined them now that the fight was over?

Ranma decided to get the first word in, maybe to keep them from asking every question that they could think of. He turned toward Sailor Moon. "Hey, what was that attack you did against Saffron?"

She blinked in surprise. She hadn't expected him to start asking questions before they did. She smiled, normally people just accepted what happened around them when they couldn't figure out how it could have happened. "That was my finishing move. It heals a person instead of killing them. Works great too!" She flashed him the victory sign while striking a pose. Ranma stared at her for a second with a sweatdrop on the back of his head before he just shrugged and accepted her strangeness.

Ranma only had one more question for her. "Why was it a giant heart, though?"

Sailor Moon looked at him blankly for a second, then glanced at her friends. No answer was forthcoming. She giggled nervously. "Uh, I never really thought about it. It just seemed to be what was right."

Ranma just nodded. He glanced back over his shoulder at the powerful presence in the trees, and decided that now might be a good time to find out if they were part of the group or if the person was an ambivalent enemy. One could never be too careful with how many different monsters there seemed to be roaming the streets.

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the trees general direction. "Hey, do you girls know the person that's hanging out in that tree over there? I can't tell who they are."

Everybody blinked and looked over at the specified tree. They peered closer, trying to tell who it was in there. They could see a shadow, but it wasn't getting any light and cloaked itself in darkness. They started migrating over there, trying to tell who it might be while Sailor Mercury's visor twittered as it tried to decipher who it was. It was about to signal it was finished when the trace disappeared. Everyone blinked for a moment, then turned around quickly when Ranma spun, having detected that same presence behind them.

Sailor Pluto stood there, trying to make it look like she had just shown up from where ever she is always hiding. Ranma wasn't fooled though, he knew she had just teleported over there, and he wanted to know how she had done it. The rest of the scouts just knew that it had been her watching over them and were surprised that they had never detected her before then, or why she wasn't doing it from the timegates like usual. Or, they assumed that's where she usually did it.

"You have to admit," Setsuna told the group, "It does take one's opponents off guard if you show up like this. Makes then not try their hardest when they first attack."

Ranma looked at her, trying to figure out why he senses were telling him that he recognized this person, but couldn't identify her for some reason. She seemed to shift a little nervously under his stare so Ranma looked at somebody else, hoping that she wouldn't inquire as to why he was looking at her so hard. He thought about what she had said for a second before responding to it.

"True, especially if the people wearing the outfits don't mind flashing everyone while their fighting." He smirked as he saw all the girls blush as if they just realized that that was what they were doing for just about everyone. He always wondered why he kept seeing their images in toy stores and whatnot. He never stopped to actually look at who they were, but he recognized the way they were clothed.

"There are other reasons for out attire that you have no need of knowing." The green haired woman told him. Her eyes flashed slightly. "And do you think it matters what people see if they can't see through the glamour magic? One must be able to tell who you are looking at in order to be embarrassed by it."

Ranma nodded at her, conceding the point. He smiled warmly at her before saying, "You remind me of someone I knew a while ago. I'll always remember her..." His eyes misted up as he finished speaking. With an effort he got his emotions back under control before he started crying.

Sailor Pluto seemed to be visibly shaken by this, fortunately for her Ranma didn't notice while he regained his composure. The other scouts looked between Ranma and Setsuna while they both recovered themselves. Setsuna from shock and Ranma from sadness. They were going to grille the oldest woman into giving up her secrets if they had to torture her. They just hoped that she would show up.

"You knew Saffron before?" Sailor Mercury asked.

Ranma nodded at the blue skirted girl before clarifying. "Yeah, it was a few months ago. Right before the monsters started attacking Nerima actually. I had gone to China to protect some important land from being destroyed and to save a girl. When I got there it turned out that Saffron was the one doing it. The girl that I was going after died during the fight, so I killed him in order to get the cure for her. She came back to life and Saffron was reborn, him being a Phoenix and all." He sighed dejectedly. "Guess I should have figured out something else to do. I'm sorry I caused you all so much trouble."

Sailor Moon giggled and said. "No problem. We're used to fighting them all the time. We just hope he doesn't come back to haunt you again." The two outer Senshi looked at each other and shook their heads. That girl was way too forgiving sometimes. They sure hoped she would start showing more traits of the Queen she was supposed to be as she grew up.

Mercury had been clicking away on her computer while everyone had been talking, entering facts and information when it had been given. She looked up at him in startlement as the figures were finally spit out. "You killed Saffron all on your own the first time?" At his nod she continued. "Was he as strong as he is now?"

The pig tailed martial artist thought about it for a moment before nodding again. "Yeah, he was fighting at the same level as the first time until the end there. Then he started accessing his dark energies. I didn't think he would have actually stooped that low just to beat me." Suddenly he had a stricken look on his face. "I hope nobody else thinks to do what Saffron did, or you might have some things to deal with that you have no idea how to handle."

Haruka and Michiru seemed to take exception to this. "We could handle anything that came our way." They said in a confident tone.

Ranma eyed them. "Like you handled Saffron a minute ago?" He asked incredulously.

They blushed slightly but forged on. "Sure, now that was know what to expect I'm sure we could handle anything else from your past. After all, you said that was your toughest fight, and we almost had him before you showed up."

Ranma stared at them for a while longer before shaking his head in wonder. And he thought he was bad sometimes. "Listen, if any of you need some help I'll give you a number where you can reach me. I'm sure there are some times when you would have liked to have some extra help, and if I'm not already engaged in fighting some monster I'll be happy to help."

Minako, Makoto, Rei, Usagi and Ami all eagerly accepted his help, grateful for somebody else to rely on besides the sometimes questionable Tuxedo Mask. Perhaps he wouldn't show up when they needed him to help with the fight instead of right after they could have used his help. Everybody stared at Setsuna for a moment as she blushed fiercely. Ranma didn't think too much about it, since he didn't know her in uniform like the rest of the scouts did. They all marveled at this new Sailor Pluto. They didn't think anything could have gotten to her, but now Ranma had done it twice without even seeming to have tried. The scouts all wondered if there was something going on that they didn't know about. They all hoped not, they wanted him for themselves. All except Usagi, she hoped that he would be able to get the silent and lonely Senshi of Time to open up and be more cheerful. Course, that was just the way Usagi was. Not to mention that she firmly believed in her fated love with Mamaro.

Ranma whipped a piece of paper out of nowhere and scribbled a number down on it. Ami looked at it long enough to enter into her computer before Sailor Pluto suddenly stepped forward to take the paper. "I'll keep that, if you don't mind." Her cheeks were still tinged pink. Ranma gave it too her, but froze when his fingers made contact with hers, his eyes staring into her own.

He suddenly shook himself free. "Sorry, you just remind me of someone. But I know she won't be coming back." His visage saddened considerably at that statement, causing all present to wonder what had happened to him in the past. He seemed to have an exciting history to say the least.

About that time everyone seemed to realize that they were all standing around in a grade A destruction zone, with cops and emergency workers due to show up any moment. They quickly agreed to disband before they were confronted, the scouts agreeing to call him if they ever needed to. He took one last look at Setsuna before leaping off through the trees. The Sailor Scouts did the same before hiding behind some buildings and removing their suits. Once again in civilian garb they traveled home in groups, each wondering about the strange man that they had chatted with in the park. He sure seemed to be an interesting individual, but they just couldn't figure out why Setsuna had acted like she had around him until Makoto made a keen observation.

"You know what guys?" Said Senshi of love stated. "If I didn't know better I would say Setsuna likes Ranma. You remember the way she was blushing when she demanded to take his phone number?"

All the Inners looked at each other in wonder, thinking that maybe she was right and the icy Senshi of Time had actually fallen for someone? After a moment they came to a conclusion. "Naaa!" It seemed to be done more in the spirit of hoping that he was still available than actually believing what they were trying to convince themselves of.


Ranma headed home, trying to figure out why he couldn't shake the feeling that he knew the green haired woman before, and she was something that he shouldn't have forgotten about. He wandered into the Tendo home not really paying attention to where he was going, his mind still trying to match her with someone that he remembered. Akane had been talking to him for a minute now, trying to get him to respond when he finally seemed to notice that she was there.

The son of Genma blinked in surprise. "Oh hey Akane. I was thinking about something, did you want anything?" He asked innocently.

Akane threw her hands up in disgusts. "Ranma, you are so impossible. I don't know why I put up with you! Arrgh!" With that she stomped up the stairs to pout in her room.

Ranma blinked in surprise, then glanced around. He eyed Nabiki, who just held out her hand. If he was going to get an explanation from her for Akane's reaction he was going to have to pay her for it. "No thanks, Nabiki. I'm not that desperate." He finished under his breath. "Yet."

Nabiki just smirked before returning to her manga. She knew he would be back eventually. She would just have to wait a little longer before she got her money. "I'll be waiting when you change your mind Ranma."

Ranma chose to ignore her, but they both knew that she was right. He decided to go and see if Kasumi had anything in the kitchen that he could steal before dinner was served.

After that he would have to head up to the roof for some thinking. He had to figure out who that woman was. The feeling was growing inside him that it was imperative that he do so, and who was he to argue with his instincts?


Setsuna stood before the time gates, her hand clutching the small piece of paper in her hands. She had no idea what had happened since she had last seen him, but it was pretty obvious that she wouldn't have to worry about him getting hurt by any of the monsters that they might encounter. That both worried and reassured her. What had he gone through while they had been separated that had allowed him to get to that level of skill in so short a period of time? Did she really want to know? She resolved to figure out some way of getting to know Ranma again. She wasn't sure how she was going to get around the fact that she was supposed to be dead, but she was sure that she could figure something out that would work. She had plenty of time, anyway. Still, it always made her wonder how she could have fallen for somebody so immersed in chaos, not to mention was as young as he had been at the time. She shook her head. What was she thinking, even now he was still only 17 years old!

She would never admit it, but it was love at first sight as far as Setsuna was concerned. Ranma had taken a little time, but he had responded to her advances a lot differently than he had to anybody else's. That fact had given Setsuna the courage to do what she had done. Now she regretted her act, since it seemed to have caused him nothing but pain and suffering. She was both happy and sad that she had caused such a profound effect on him. She hated causing him pain, and he was in such obvious pain that it tugged hard at her heart. But to have sunk her claws into him so deeply was a gratifying feeling for the woman. She hadn't known really how much was true feeling and how much was him just going along with what seemed right at the time. Now she knew, it had been genuine emotion that he had been flooding her with those few years ago.

Now, however, she had to get to a Senshi meeting that was going on at the temple. She usually didn't attend them, but knew that there were going to be a lot of questions involving her and a pig tailed boy. She knew she would have to answer them truthfully, but maybe she could twist it a bit in order to get all those love sick girls from trying to hook them up again. Although that wouldn't be something that she would be adverse to. Another question was, should she check the timegates to see what they had to say about her old boyfriend? To check his past and find out what had happened to him while she had been gone? She knew that it was going to be a hard experience, to see all the pain that he had to endure both from her death and because of how good he was in the art. She knew from experience one could only get that good from actual fighting for ones life or most prized belongings. That level of skill wasn't just from practice.

On the other hand, she had said that she wasn't going to look into him using her powers, but was just going to see what developed and try to get a normal relationship. She should have known by now it would be impossible, she was the oldest of the Senshi by far. With a look at the time gates showing Ranma's face, a happy smile on his lips, Sailor Pluto departed for the Shinto Temple.


The eight girls that made up the Sailor Senshi sat in a loose circle, a large collection of pillows and snacks distributed between them all. Usagi got most of the candy, Michiru and Haruka had taken most of the pillows. They were all waiting for the ninth and oldest member of their squad to show up so they could beat some answers out of her. Usually Setsuna just showed up out of nowhere and scared Usagi to death. This time was no exception. Setsuna used her sense of humor whenever she could, it was something that she had to suppress a long time ago, but it sure was fun to let it go once in a while.

"Do you think she's gonna skip this meeting?" Usagi asked everybody in general, not really caring if she got a response or not. It was a good distraction so she could nab another handful of Minako's great cookies.

"No, I will be attending Usagi." Came from just behind the Moon Princess.

"WAAAAH!" Usagi removed herself from the floor, picking cookies up as she went. The rest of the girls started laughing while Setsuna's eyes danced, an outward sign of emotion that not one of the girls managed to catch. Something that the green haired woman knew Ranma would have. But that was what she had yet to figure out how to deal with. The one thing she wasn't sure about and it had to do with her own future. Setsuna had always suspected that the gods had been messing with her life, now she knew. Oh, if she could have seen the look on that gods face when she shared that thought perfectly with a certain pig tailed martial artist over in Nerima. Especially after the sneezing fit said deity got after having that happen to him.

"DON'T DO THAT!" Usagi shouted, having recaptured her precious cookies. "Appear behind somebody else, I don't know if can take you doing that again."

Setsuna just gave them all a mysterious smile before settling down on the huge pile of cushions that Michiru and Haruka had acquired. She wondered how long it would be before somebody blurted out the question she was sure was on every bodies mind.

About three seconds. "So, who was that guy, Setsuna, huh? You were so eager to get his phone number it makes me think that he was an old flame or something." Though spoken in jest with a hint of fear (this is Setsuna, after all), the rosy tinge on the Senshi of Times cheeks caused every sailor suited warrior there to fear for their lives.

Setsuna was the emotionless one, she couldn't be blushing! Or it would mean the end of the world as they knew it. Setsuna just sat and stared back at them all, a sweatdrop forming on the back of her head. Her reputation couldn't be that bad, could it?

Setsuna decided to see how much they could take. "Well, if you must know, yes. He is my old boyfriend."

THUMP!

Setsuna had a huge sweatdrop on the back of her head. All the Senshi had just fainted. This wasn't a good sign, especially if she wanted to bring Ranma over to some of the meetings and cuddle while the moon cat advisors tried to make things serious.

A few minutes later the girls started coming around. Setsuna glared at each of them in turn, behind their back. No need for them to think something was wrong by glaring at them in the face.

Usagi rubbed her head. "Man, I had the strangest dream." She turned toward the Senshi of Time with a smile on her face. "I knew you couldn't have had a boyfriend, you're at the time gates all the time....right?"

Setsuna sighed. She was starting to get a little annoyed with them now. Couldn't they see that she was a woman too? Surely they didn't think Minako and Makoto were the only ones looking for love. "Yes, I spend lots of time there, that doesn't mean I can't find the time to get to know somebody special."

Ami spoke up, surprising them. "So, why did he not know who you were? I would have thought it would be somewhat difficult keeping your duties a secret with a boyfriend."

"Yes, well...that's one of the reasons that I broke up with him. I couldn't just let him get involved with Senshi business when he had no reason to."

Makoto spoke up now. "What do you mean no business?! He had you to take care of, that should be plenty of reason to get involved." She clasped her hands together beneath her chin, hearts shining her in eyes. "A knight in shining armor dashing in to save his true love! He'd be better than Tuxedo Mask, even!" The girl enthused.

"He would not!" The destined of Mamuro shouted. A moment later Usagi seemed to realize something. "Wait, you broke up with him? That means he must think you died or something, otherwise he wouldn't have reacted to you like he did when he saw you today."

The girls' eyes widened in shock at that. "What did you do to him?" They demanded as one.

Setsuna blushed, not sure how she was going to tell them that they were right. Well, in the way that she usually did things, making them figure it out. "He had no warrant to persue me after he saw what happened to me."

They all sat around and stared at her for a minute before Haruka figured it out. "You messed with his head and used your powers to convince him that he shouldn't, or maybe couldn't go after you anymore." Living with the woman had given the blonde some insight into what went through the older girls mind.

"Ahh..." Setsuna was still trying to get out of admitting that's what she had done when Ami's computer let off a warning beep.

Everybody stared at the blue haired girl, waiting for her to tell them what they were supposed to do. It took Ami several moments to remember this, at which point she blushed and whipped the computer out. She had so wanted to hear the rest of Setsuna's story!

A moment of study revealed the answer. "There's a large amount of negative energy centered in Nerima. It's based on the readings I got of Ranma when he was fighting Saffron. It seems his monster trouble just got much bigger than it had been, from what he said. Some of us should go over there to make sure he can handle it, however, this could just be a distraction."

The other Senshi nodded at this, having had such diversions before. Those had cost them, until they managed to develop a new sensor program that could detect more of the energies needed to make a portal, instead of just the monsters. "Is this a portal or just a monster?" Setsuna questioned.

Ami studied the small screen for a few moments while the other girls in the room transformed. "It's a portal. They seem to be preparing to launch an all out offensive against that district for some reason. Ranma, perhaps? He did defeat Saffron, they might be trying to get revenge." Ami looked over at Setsuna and paused a moment at the mental struggle the older girl was obviously having. She was about to inquire what was wrong when the green haired Senshi straightened and looked at her.

"I'm going to the Time Gates, I'll be back as soon as I can. I must check something...." She cut herself off abruptly and vanished into thin air. Ami blinked in surprise. Setsuna was going to check on Ranma, that much she was certain of, but she didn't know what Pluto was going to do with that knowledge.

Ami turned herself into Sailor Mercury and looked at the other magical girls gathered around her, wondering what the oldest Senshi was going to see, and what was going to happen when she returned to the rest of the Scouts. Ami sighed, not having the foggiest idea what could be going through Setsuna's head. She would just have to do her best and deal with whatever came up. She turned to her friends and fellow warriors of love and justice.

"It looks like they're putting all their energy into this one attack on Nerima, based on the size of the portal that they are preparing to open. We shouldn't have to worry about splitting up, but I'm going to hang back and check my readings often to make sure we're not missing anything." The other girls nodded at that. The enemy had done things like this before, hoping that they could gain more energy than they lost by having their monsters killed.

"We better get going, otherwise we won't make it there in time," Mars said.

The others nodded in agreement, though everybody could tell that they wanted to remain until Pluto reappeared to tell them what they would be dealing with. They sighed and jumped out the window, bounding across the rooftops to get to the neighboring district, hoping that they hadn't delayed too long that the martial artists in Nerima wouldn't be overwhelmed.


Ranma lounged in the Tendo living room, idly flipping through channels on the TV. He hadn't found anything interesting to watch, but he was determined to keep his mind out of the past. He didn't want to be depressed anymore. He gave up and turned the device off right when the phone rang. It rang again and Ranma blinked in surprise when Kasumi didn't come out of the kitchen to answer it. Another ring caused him to blink in surprise when Nabiki didn't come strolling over to answer. Another ring made him remember that the Tendo daughters had all gone out for a night of fun and... well, Ranma wasn't entirely sure what a bunch of girls like that would DO. They were all so different. Shaking off the useless thought he jumped up and bounded over to the phone, picking it up in the middle of its fourth ring.

"Hello?" He said.

There was a long pause, but Ranma could tell that somebody was one the other end. "I know somebody's there. Who is it? Shampoo? Ukyo, maybe? Nabiki, are you trying to pull a prank call or something?"

A deep shuddering breath was heard from the other person on the phone, giving Ranma pause. That had sounded like somebody trying to pull themself back together after crying, or almost crying. He should know, he had done it enough himself.

A feminine voice spoke up. "No, I'm not anyone you know. I called to warn you about something that should be showing up in your koi pond in about..." She was cut off by Ranma.

The tremor in her voice when obviously distraught, the inflection on her words, the pitch of he voice, her manner of speaking, all of it reminded Ranma of somebody. "SETSUNA!!!! IS THAT YOU?!!? WHERE ARE YOU? WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU? IS THIS REALLY SETSUNA MEIOU?!" Ranma was clutching at the phone desperately, not believing that he was hearing Setsuna's voice again. He had just been thinking about her, too! Thinking about the last conversation he had had with her over the phone. The woman on the other end sounded exactly like her...

"No, I am not named Setsuna." She could claim that as accurate, since she was currently Sailor Pluto. But Ranma didn't know that. She was a bit concerned on a completely different note, however. The magic that disguised the Senshi's true identities when transformed apparently didn't work very well over the phone, a design flaw that she would have to see about getting fixed.

"Oh."

Sailor Pluto almost broke down crying and admitted everything upon hearing the amount of pain Ranma somehow laced into that single word. The two callers sat in silence for a minute before Ranma remembered he had interrupted her. "Uh, you were saying something?"

It took a few moments more before the oldest Senshi regained control of herself. "Ahh, yes, I was. A monster will be showing up in the koi pond a few minutes from now, and I am calling to tell you that it's far too strong for you to take out by yourself. You must have done something to get whoever is sending them pissed off, since this one is strong enough to take you down fairly easily. Be very careful until help arrives, then we should be able to defeat it."

Ranma nodded to himself and muttered, "Saffron." Despite how quietly he said it Pluto still managed to catch it. She nodded to herself, as that had been her assumption also. "Who's going to be showing up? Anybody I know?" His words were once again riddled with old wounds that refused to heal completely, breaking Setsuna's heart. She bit her lip, trying to think of a way she could tell him who she was without him losing it completely. Ranma's question to her seemed to present a little opportunity to provide a hint.

"Trust your feelings. You've met them before."

Ranma pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it, trying to figure out who was on the other end. She had sounded so much like Setsuna, but she had so flatly denied his questioning he supposed that it was just the phone distorting her voice to sound like her. The bit about trusting his feelings had sounded far too much like a movie he had seen a while ago. He put the device back to his ear. "When are the bad guys going to get here exactly?"

There was a brief pause. "Now."

Ranma blinked in surprise before turning and looking out toward the pond. A small black speck was hovering above it, and within moments it had widened to a vertical eight foot circle. Ranma absentmindedly said, "Yeah, I need to take care of something, I'll get back to you." He put the receiver down on its cradle, missing the words in response.

"You better. I'll make sure of it."

A single bound brought the pig tailed martial artist to within a few feet of the ponds edge, as he didn't want to get too close and change genders. A few more moments of waiting and something stepped through the opening. Ranma had been expecting something impressive, or at least evil looking, but all he could see was a twisted remake of Kodachi Kuno. She had dark skin, her traditional black hair in it's sideways ponytail, though it had a strange shiny quality to it, like it wasn't individual strands, but one large mass. Her black leotard was now sporting built in ribbons, at her wrists, ankles, and some more could be seen curling around up over her shoulders from somewhere on her back. While Kodachi always had a kind of mad gleam in her sparkling black eyes, now there seemed to be something more sinister there now.

The woman came completely through the portal and stood hovering in the air a couple feet above the water. She slowly spun around, absorbing her surroundings before her eyes locked on to the only person visible, Ranma. He shivered a bit as he recalled staring into those eyes when he had been paralyzed on the roof. While she was pretty and had a great body, if you looked into her eyes you got the impression that somebody else was driving. It scared Ranma pretty bad when he had first seen it.

Ranma dropped back into his standard Anything Goes stance and waited, as these beings always insisted on having a speech before the fight. He wasn't disappointed. In the typical Black Rose gesture she raised the back of her hand to her mouth and let loose a blood curdling laugh. It was much worse now than what Ranma remembered, but that wasn't something he was thinking about at the moment. He was much more concerned with how she was planning on using all those new ribbons adorned about her. "Well, I see your as handsome as ever, my darling."

Ranma shivered and shook his head but remained silent, perfectly aware that he would just be prolonging the speech if he interrupted and tried to deny that he was her darling. "Do you know what I've been through this past month? It's been glorious! My skills and strength have increased a dozen fold, and all I had to do was sell myself to The Dark Side." That bit was obviously her own twisted mind, unless the villains were corny, Ranma mused to himself. "Join me, and let me show you the way to true power and magnificence. Together, with you at my side as lover and partner we could rule this pitiful world of lowly peasants. We would be beings of immense power, able to do anything we wanted! Tokyo would be our bed, Nerima our kitchen to feast at! Indeed, we would probably be driven to such distraction that it would take us ages to completely conquer the world, preoccupied with our frequent trysts and all night sessions of love makin...OOOF! Hack, hack, cough...."

Ranma hadn't been able to stand any more of that speech and jumped across the pond, slamming a fist into her gut as he passed. He was surprised by her reaction, as he thought she would have been better able to resist damage than that. Perhaps she had been so consumed with her speech she hadn't noticed him move and had dedicated all her energy into speed. This theory was tossed out when the ribbons on her wrists shot out and tried to slice or bind him. Ranma easily avoided all such attacks, not even really trying that hard to keep out of harms way. She had said she had improved a dozen fold, but Ranma had been seeing such steady action he had increased his martial arts by leaps and bounds. And, seeing as he didn't have to constrain himself to the rules of Rhythmic Gymnastics Martial Arts he could do a lot of things that he never would have even thought of in the ring.

"Now now, play nice, or I might have to teach you a lesson before I let you have your way with me." Kodachi said, absently rubbing the spot on her stomach that he had struck. A feral grin appeared on her face as she watched his body contort around her strikes. "My, you are worthy of taking me, aren't you? Such speed, such strength, such a chiseled body, such a long and thick p..."

Ranma cut her off again. "Ka-me-ha-me-HA!" It wasn't that big of a blast, only a couple of feet across, as Ranma hadn't spent any time building his energies before firing the projectile. He was still a little surprised to see the Black Rose's various ribbons whip in front of her, creating a wall of material right before her crossed arms in front of her chest. Rather well protected, Ranma thought to himself. The blue beam hit, pushing the floating woman back a foot before she stopped and stood there, her ribbons keeping the energy from causing her any harm.

Ranma scowled at this and grunted with effort, upping the power he was pouring into his attack. Kodachi fell back another couple of feet as Ranma noticed she was visibly straining under his onslaught. The son of Genma blinked in surprise at this. Hadn't that lady on the phone said that this was going to be one of the harder monsters? Already he could tell that she was going to be a pushover, not even something that the other martial artist in the area would have that had much trouble with. A slight bit of effort and a pulse of ki traveled down the beam, causing Kodachi's eyes to widen in fear.

"No! You can't do this to me! We're destined to be together!" She said no more when the surge impacted her shield and ripped right through it, consuming the upper half of her body before blasting off into the sky and exploding in a beautiful display. There was irony to be found there, but Ranma didn't really care at the moment. He would reflect on that later, with his roof/star gazing time. Her lower half remained in the air for a second before quickly turning to dust and blowing off with the breeze. The dust somehow seemed to be happy as it swirled away, and Ranma knew why. It would take a while, but the dust would gather itself back together at her home and eventually bring the real Kodachi back to life, like she was before she had committed herself to the Negaverse energies. It had happened the same way to a few other people from Ranma's school that had wanted a quick and easy way to get revenge on something that they thought he was the perpetrator of. Gosunkugi had been among the first.

Ranma lowered his hands and stared out over the pond. That was supposed to be hard? Either something wasn't right or the lady on the phone had been reading the wrong signals. That was something that he could believe, as Genma did such things all the time. That man really needed to be observant in more things than just martial arts. A voice spoke up behind Ranma.

"Well, I don't know what all the commotion was about. He took care of it perfectly fine himself." Ranma turned and saw it had been spoken by a girl with long black hair in a short red skirt, red boots, gloves and a red bow over a white top. There was also some sort of band around her forehead, with gems places along it.

"Yeah," Ranma informed them, "I got a phone call from some woman saying that this was supposed to be a really tough monster and avoid it until help arrived, but it couldn't even get near me. Was she just confused or something?"

Another voice answered, one that made Ranma jerk in remembrance, before he could get himself back under control as it was just Sailor Pluto stepping out from behind a tree in the yard. "You took care of it yourself, easily?" She asked, a note of disbelief in her voice.

"Er, yeah. Isn't that what I just said?" A few small smiles were his response at humor, but otherwise things remained serious.

"How could that be?" The green haired woman sounded like she was talking to herself. "I know what I saw. That monster should have taxed his abilities, even as strong as he is. What could have happened to change that?" After a few minutes the Senshi of Time turned and regarded the other girls standing on the wall of the Tendo compound.

"Did any of you see Ranma fight him?" She asked.

The girls nodded, while Sailor Moon spoke up. "You mean the monster? Yeah, he beat her, pretty easily too. I wish our battles would go that easily."

Setsuna narrowed her eyes a bit. "Wait a minute. Her? It was supposed to be a male monster."

All the Senshi blinked at that one. "Really? That would've only been our second one. Saffron was the first. But no, the monster was female as usual, said her name was Kodachi Kuno or something like that."

"I see my twisted sister has failed in her mission, which leaves me to succeed in mine." Everybody started in surprise at this new voice. It was a tall monster, with the same darker than normal skin and strange hair that Kodachi had sported, but this time it was a he and he wore traditional kendo garb. Over his shoulder a boken rested easily. He too levitated over the water, though he quickly glided forward and stood on the ground around the edge of the pond before assuming his kendo stance, the familiar mad gleam in his eyes clearly visible.

"I am Tatewaki Kuno, samurai and defender of beautiful women who wish to bask in my presence and enjoy the endless pleasures associated with joining my harem." All those present looked at the man turned monster strangely, thinking he sounded an awful lot like an advertisement for services that nobody would ever want. "Know this you foul demon, what I have sacrificed and suffered through by allowing the Dark Side to make me its leader and role model is more than made up for with your death by my righteous blade. I care not for what else those peons I associate with on the Dark Side have planned, since I will smite them when the time comes. My cunning and perfect plans are the only ones that need be followed, henceforth I must merely convince my new underlings of my perfection. Now, prepare yourself, enemy of women." His speech finished, Kuno charged directly at Ranma with a shout, ignoring the girls arrayed behind him in his desire to kill the man he thought prevented him from achieving his perverted dreams. "DIE!!"

Ranma's eyes widened slightly when he noticed just how fast the samurai wannabe was moving. Maybe he had actually done some training while he was gone, this could be an interesting fight. A slight tilt to the side let Kuno's blade swish harmless by him, also making Tatewaki loose his balance briefly when his destined strike of vengeance was somehow avoided by his sworn enemy.

Kuno halted his momentum and slashed horizontally, but Ranma bent over backwards and watched the strike flash just past his nose. He straightened, opening his mouth to taunt his opponent when he noticed a strange look on the older boys face. While strange expressions were usually there, this one was especially so.

"What's this?" Kuno seemed to be talking to himself, even though his voice was projected grandly and with much pompous inflection. "Has the lowborn cur actually managed to match, nay, exceed my previous skill level? Impossible, yet, I cannot deny the evidence set forthwith before me." Somehow a serious expression adorned Kuno's face before he attempted to continue speaking.

Ranma beat him to it. "Wow, becoming a dumb down evil minion actually increased his intelligence." Ranma shared a scared look with a few of the girls behind him. "Scary." They all said in unison.

Kuno ignored the insult, as he had been building up to this speech and he would let nothing interfere. "Know this, knave. I have suffered much to gain the skills I now posses, and I refuse to allow you to live any longer! Hence, I now attack at full power! Be gone from my presence!" With that Kuno seemed to teleport directly in front of Ranma, his bokken already whistling through the air even before Ranma could visually track his movements. The only thing that managed to keep Ranma's head connected to his neck was his ears telling him that something was fast approaching and he needed to duck.

The first attack missed by less than a centimeter, but the follow up struck home. This was, fortunately, not a killing blow like the first one had been. Still, the evilly enhanced wooden blade impacted against Ranma's ribs with enough force to crack two of them and hurtle the pig tailed youth through the concrete wall surrounding the Tendo dojo.

The Sailor Senshi gasped in awe at the power that the newest monster had exhibited. Such speed! Haruka pulled forth her Space Sword, firming her resolve that, if she pushed herself hard enough, she could match his skill level. With a shout of rage the short haired blonde dived to attack.

Kuno whirled around to deflect the overhead slice to the side at the last moment. Hotaru looked over at the hole in the wall with concern, the nasty wet snapping sound an obvious sign that the older boy hadn't been all right when he left the fighting area. She decided to go over and see if he was all right.

Looking over at a couple of her fellow warriors of love and justice she quickly relayed to them what she planned on doing. They nodded absently, their entire attention focused on the incredible sword fight before them. For the moment, Haruka was holding her own for the moment against the super powered monster.

Sailor Saturn jumped over the wall and looked around amidst the rubble for any sign of the young martial artist. Not spotting him anywhere made her wonder if he had wandered off, so she jumped back up onto the wall to look both ways down the street in hopes of catching sight of him. Hotaru heard a few shouts behind her about forming up and preparing some magical attacks to use against the monster, but she didn't concern herself with them at the moment. She had to make sure that boy was all right first!

Saturn heard rubble shifting at the other side of the street, so she hopped down and walked over. Emerging from underneath a ridiculously large pile of concrete and random debris was a short red headed girl with an ample figure. She was mumbling something about morons leaving buckets of water lying around when she glanced up form dusting off her clothes and noticed the short purple eyed girl standing before her.

"Are you all right?" Sailor Saturn inquired.

The girl smirked. "Of course I am! I'm Ranma Saotome, and I never loose." She straightened and tried to take a swaggering step forward. She made it until she put weight down on her leg before hissing sharply in pain and holding her side. "Just got a little obstacle to work around here."

Hotaru stared at the girl strangely. Ranma was supposed to be a guy, and yet here was this girl claiming to have the same name. And she was in the area where the male Ranma was supposed to have been. But, where was the black haired youth? She shook her head in confusion but held out her hands to halt the older girls progress.

"Wait, I can help fix your ribs if you let me touch you." Hotaru had her best smile on, hoping that she wouldn't react the way most people did when she told them of this. Of course, in her Senshi guise she didn't have to worry about it nearly as much, but it was always a worry in the back of her mind.

Ranma stared at her in shock for a moment before a huge grin appeared on her face. "You have healing powers? That's so cool, I wish I could do that." She hobbled as quickly as she could over to the short haired girl and let go of her side, not sure where she had to be touched for it to work.

Hotaru smiled in shock. This girl must be as used to weirdness as some of those that lived in Juuban for her to react like that. Still, she was pleased at how eager the other girl was to get to know her, even if she only wanted to get herself healed. Placing her hands on the girl's side she called forth the power that let her do the impossible and felt the girls bones start to knit back together. Once she was done she knew the redhead wasn't completely well, but she could walk around now without discomfort. Removing her hands Hotaru decided to ask a question.

"Have you seen a black haired boy, about this tall," She held her hand over her head in what she guessed to be Ranma's height, "With his hair in a pigtail just like yours?"

The older girl stared at her for several long moments in contemplation, making Saturn wonder what was going through her mind. Finally, the redhead spoke. "I trust you, so I'll show you a little secret." She reached behind her back and pulled a thermos from... somewhere. She held it over her head for a moment having unscrewed the lid before looking at the young Senshi again.

"Ya, see," Ranma explained as the water holding device slowly tipped forward, "I'm really Ranma, the one that you're looking for, since I picked up this water based curse that makes me change forms whenever I get hit with different temperature water." The thermos flipped over and warm water cascaded down over the well developed girl's hair, sweeping down its length, turning red to black where it touched. A moment later the girl's body morphed, loosing curves, losing bust, losing hips, gaining height and a few things hidden by clothing.

"See?" The former girl said in a distinctly male voice. Hotaru boggled. That had been so neat! And he was cute, too!

"That was sooooo cool!" Ranma boggled in return as the sailor suited warrior for love and justice squealed in delight. "You must be the best person around, knowing about women AND men. I thought Haruka-papa might have something like that too, but she doesn't have anything on you."

Ranma forced a smile. "Er, yeah, thanks. What was your name again?"

Hotaru twiddled her fingers and blushed. "I actually never gave it to you. I'm sorry." The embarrassed girl straightened and struck what she thought would be a heroic pose. "I'm the sailor suited warrior for love and justice Sailor Saturn!" The happiness and pride in that statement were obvious.

Ranma was having a hard time not breaking out into a giggling fit, despite the fact he had just changed back into being male. That had been the funniest thing he had ever seen, not to mention so cute for the 12 year old! If he ever had kids he hoped they were as inventive as this gem.

He somehow manages to retain a serious face. "Nice to meet you, Sailor Saturn. I'm Ranma Saotome, but you already knew that didn't you." Ranma blinked for a second before realizing that was a strange fact indeed. "How do you know who I am, anyway?"

Saturn beamed at him. "Sailor Pluto told me about you! She said she knew you when you were younger, so we got to hear a little bit about you." She blinked up at his still wet form. "Of course, this was before you got cursed, I guess, since she never mentioned that."

Hotaru paused when she noticed the sharp look Ranma was giving her. "Pluto? The one with green hair and the black skirt?"

Saturn nodded.

Ranma seemed to be thinking hard about something, and Hotaru could guess what, but she didn't want him to figure out who she was like this. She wanted to watch Setsuna tell her old boyfriend and then have them kiss and make up. Pluto really needed a boyfriend in her opinion, it would help loosen her up, get her more in touch with the rest of the Senshi as a group.

Ranma looked over at the hole in the wall, flashes and bursts of dust visible through it as the 8 women and one man fought it out. "I'll have to try and talk to her after the fight is over," Ranma mused to himself. Suddenly his eyes widened in shock. "Oh my god! The fight! I have to get back in there, I can't let those girl's take care of my problems, or I won't be any better than Pop!" He shook his head sharply, obviously angry with himself before suddenly turning back to face Hotaru, grabbing her hands in his.

"Thank you, Saturn, I'm really glad my ribs don't hurt anymore. I can't tell you how much better that feels!" He enthused before bounding off over the wall, staring down at the mass destruction happening in the Tendo yard. He sighed at that. Nabiki was going to have a fit. Again.

The Senshi that sported a rather fancy looking straight sword was being pushed back under Kuno's onslaught, while a girl with blue hair and a blue skirted uniform was looking at the fight through a visor thing covering her eyes. Ranma assumed she was gathering data for everyone, and decided that he would make sure that nobody got within real close range of her. Knowledge was power, after all, as had been demonstrated to him before thanks to Cologne and Happosai.

Ranma scanned the assembled short skirted warriors but was disappointed that the Senshi named Pluto was not among them. He had wanted to talk with her when the fight was over. Oh well, maybe she would be back. First thing first was to get rid of Kuno, permanently.

The sword wielding chick jumped back from the fight right before the red skirted girl, Ranma thought she was called Mars, unleashed what looked like a magically constructed fire arrow. When she shouted out "Flame Arrow!" That pretty much confirmed the obvious. Kuno spun, swinging his bokken around like a baseball bat. The magical arrow hit it and bounced back, striking the girl who had launched it and sending her flying backwards to tumble to a halt against the outside wall, obviously at least a little out of sorts for the next few minutes.

Ranma was really starting to get annoyed with this monster, and he cursed himself for underestimating the jerk. That would teach him to discount the boost those monsters got when they were imbued with Dark energies. Time to get serious, and hopefully keep all those cute girls in short skirts from taking anymore hits. Ranma rapped himself on the head quickly, trying to get that 'cute' thought out of his head. He already had plenty of girl trouble, he didn't need to start thinking about even more of them.

Before Kuno had the chance to spin back around to his original opponent a large green magical ball smashed into his chest. Ranma vaguely heard the shout of "World Shaking!" from one of the short skirted fighters, but what had completely captured his attention was the fact Kuno hadn't really been hurt by the blast. A large dust could had been kicked up when the attack had connected, but the kendoist had been ejected out the back of it from the force of the hit. Only Ranma, and maybe that girl with the visor that was still looking around at everything with little flashes of light in front of her eyes, could see that Kuno was pretty much unhurt, except for some light singing on his clothes.

The girls seemed to be happy with the results they had achieved, with only Mars being hurt at all, when a black blade of energy cut through the still swirling dust cloud to strike the woman with the sword and a blonde one that had been standing close to her. The dust now dispersed, all those present could see Kuno standing in all his delusional glory.

"More force than you currently have is required to harm my perfect body, and what your friends were smited with was the weakest of my new... OOF!" Kuno's second rant of the afternoon was interrupted by a boot to the head, courtesy of Ranma.

Kuno picked himself up from where he had landed face first on the ground and glared imperiously at the apparently revived foul sorcerer. Kuno smirked as he recalled some of the foul sorcerers he had met, and came to the conclusion that, along with everything else Ranma did, he wasn't even that foul of a sorcerer.

"Fiend! How dare you strike me while I am having a dialog on my many virtues! This is unforgivable, but I am glad the vengeance of Tatewaki Kuno is swift and true!"

He once again took up a heroic pose, but this time a black mist swirled up around him, one that Ranma was a little reluctant to come into contact with. He had seen the same thing countless times before, and every time it was a bad idea to touch that stuff, for a variety of reasons. So Ranma chose a method of attack where he wouldn't have to touch the jerk.

Kuno was once again ranting on about how much women would rejoice once they had sampled his perfection, or gotten a real look at his incredible virility, which was causing a few of the girls present to blush, a few of them to look disgusted, and all of them to glare threateningly at him when he mentioned he would spare their lives if they would join his harem, where all their desires would be met and they could live out their paltry lives in his thrall.

Unable to hold back anymore, Ranma whispered, "Ka-me-ha-me-ha!" Right before thrusting his hands out before him, a brilliant blue bolt of energy screaming the short distance between the two male fighters. The explosion was once again intense, and the dust that it kicked up was impressive, but Ranma was troubled as soon as the blast struck home. He knew that it hadn't worked nearly as well as he had hoped it would, but he was confident that it had caused more damage than the Senshi's magical attack that had struck the former high school student.

Ranma gasped when he felt a dark surge and realized that Kuno was doing that same thing as last time, sending a dark wave of energy through the cloud in the hopes of catching a few of his opponents unaware. Ranma ducked and glanced behind him, his body tensing when he realized he was looking right up a brown haired girls skirt to see a very skimpy and lacy garment barely doing its job. Pushing the vision from his mind as hard as he could he launched himself backwards, wrapping an arm around the girls waist and pulling her to lye atop him.

As they were still flying through the air he shouted a warning to the others. "Get down! He's going to attack again!"

Before the words were even out of Ranma's mouth the black energy blade sliced through the intervening dust cloud and quickly headed towards the gathered good guys (well, girls and a guy, unless there's cold water). With a mental grasp of the situation that was far above standard Ranma managed to smooth down the long hair of the girl that was above him before the black blade reached them and sliced off most of its impressive length. Who knew when she would be able to fight again if the girl was traumitized by having her hair sliced like Akane had. Ranma and the girl he had saved from some brief but intense pain landed roughly on the dirt, sliding backwards a couple feet before coming to rest.

Makoto seemed to have somehow wrapped her arms and legs around her rescuers strong frame, while still leaving all inappropriate parts of her body barely covered by her skimpy uniform. How this was accomplished even the best minds didn't dwell on for long. Ranma absently smoothed her hair down in a comforting motion and glanced behind him, relieved to see that everyone else hadn't been close enough to get caught in the blast. The wall was looking rather worse for wear, however.

"Are you all right?" Ranma asked the girl he still held tightly, despite the fact she wouldn't have fallen off him even if he had tried his best to remove her. It had nothing to do with how good her body felt pressed in it entirety along his, none what so ever. Ranma was very good at hiding his feelings when he needed to, like when he held a shapely girl in his arms and was supposed to be fighting a deadly opponent and not notice things like how good she smelled, or how well she fit against him, or how much he wished he knew what exactly he was supposed to do with all those feelings coursing through him. He had heard plenty of rumors, but he was too embarrassed to ask and everybody else thought he already knew what they were talking about whenever speaking in innuendo. Ranma really wished somebody would explain that entire sex thing to him, everybody wanted him to do it, yet nobody would tell him before hand what was required in the act. It might help him in dealing with all those accusations of being a pervert. Even his mom wouldn't explain in enough detail.

Makoto raised her head from its comfortable position on Ranma's chest, having realized from the tone of voice the man she was latched onto was using that the danger she had been rescued from was over for the moment. She was going to tell him that she was fine when she was captivated by the most amazing blue eyes she had ever seen on a boy and couldn't utter a word to save her life. She just sported a silly smile and glazed eyes.

Ranma frowned slightly, as that hadn't been the response that he was hoping for. He glanced around and saw the dust cloud still swirling strongly, so he knew he had a few seconds before Kuno would get back into the action. The pompous evil minion would never pass up the opportunity for a showy entrance, having sustained no damage or some such from Ranma's attack. Remembering the blue haired Senshi with the visor, and his deduction of how what she was doing at the fight, he decided to take her over there and get her to help her, maybe call over Saturn or something.

Standing quickly Ranma dashed over to where the blue skirted girl stood on the stone fence, getting another glance up some long legs to her unmentionables before jumping up next to her. Having missed the glance upwards the pig tailed martial artist took before leaping, Ami figured the blush on his face was from having Makoto snuggling him so closely. That had been the blush of a second ago, which she had also missed.

The youth, Ranma she knew him to be, smiled at her pleasantly, something that made Ami's heart beat a little faster. He sure was an attractive one, and his face wasn't even hidden behind a mask. "Hey," He said, "I think this girl might have hurt herself, she just has this grin on her face and her eyes glazed over."

Ami had to use more self control than she ever had before in all her life to keep from giggling at that moment. This boy also had no idea when a girl was interested in him, perhaps useful information for the future. Instead, Mercury merely nodded and helped the young man peel her fellow Senshi off of him. Once she was standing under her own power, the love struck expression slowly left her face, but Ranma had already turned back to the battle that was about to be joined once again. He gave one last comment before leaping down to join in with the attack.

"You might want to call Saturn over, she healed me not to long ago, I'm sure she could do something for your friend there." With that he leapt down next to Haruka, still sporting her sword, and a just recovered Mars. Back them Minako was waiting for a good opening to lob some offensive magic into, preferably with the monsters back turned, along with Sailor Moon, who looked a little lost at having all the Senshi plus Ranma going after one monster. Usagi was used to the odds being a little bit more even, and she was having trouble finding a place for an opening through all the other fighters use the giant pink heart on the bad guy. Saturn wasn't visible, while Mercury and Makoto stood on the outer wall. Michiru lay against the wall, her eyes swirling around in little vortexes. Ranma grimaced at that, figuring it had happened while he had been outside the "arena" with Saturn.

Ranma and Haruka charged at the same time, hoping that a little double teaming would get them the edge they needed to disarm the evil being and remove the dark taint. Ranma wasn't sure the guy would actually want to give it up even if he was cured, but he might have been under some of his sisters drugs at the time, so anything was possible. Before the pair had even gone two steps Kuno held up his hands and cried out, "Halt!"

The two did, blinking in surprise. "For the crime of interrupting my monolog a second time, I pronounce Ranma Saotome to instantaneous death, if not sooner." Solemnness was written all over his pronouncement. Everybody ignored it, except Sailor Moon, who looked sad.

"Your going to kill him?" She said sadly. "But he has such a cute butt!" A HUGE sweatdrop grew on everybody's head, even Kuno's. That wasn't the response anybody had been expecting. Save from Mars.

The Senshi of Fire was suddenly standing next to the blonde somehow. "We know that, but there's more to him than a tight tush. Right?"

All the girls stopped and stared at Ranma's butt, thinking on that matter. Mars sweatdropped. "Right." She said, answering her own question before anybody else could.

Kuno appeared before Usagi. "You there, you dare interrupt me once more?!" A deep scowl was prominent on his features, as if the poor girl had committed the greatest of offenses. Of course, little did they realize that, to him, she had. Kuno was downright pissed at having been interrupted mid-rant for the third time in a row.

Everybody gasped in surprise. They hadn't even seen the boy move! Sailor Moon "Eeeked!" And jumped backwards, tripping over something that nobody else would possibly have hit, and landed hard on her backside. Fortunately, she was back up in an instant, not sitting there to bawl her eyes out when the monster was a couple of feet away from her, but an instant was all Kuno had needed.

Tatewaki's eyes were as big as saucers, and a trickle of blood was running out of his nose. "Such purity! Such innocence! Such beauty!" He raved, "Such a naughty pair of panties!" Usagi blushed crimson, mumbling something about stupid transformation clothes and never being able to keep the (under)garment after she was done fighting evil.

Two red roses hurtled down from above, heading directly towards Kuno's eyes. The pair of flowers was calmly caught between the evil minions fingers, much like how the masked man had thrown them. Kuno glared at the intruder, shouting at him before the newcomer had a chance to speak. "What's this? Some lowborn cur has purposefully stolen my wooing technique? Insufferable! Give thy name, so I may smite thee, along with that foul sorcerer Saotome."

The masked man in the tuxedo blinked in mild surprise before rising to his full height, sweeping his cape behind him and crossing his arm over his chest in True Hero fashion. "I am none other than..."

"Is it not correct to give my own name first? Verily, mine I shall give. I am known throughout this hallowed land as The Black Lightning of Furinkan High!" Somehow, a black lightning bolt struck the ground right behind him, sending arcs of electricity along his body. Kuno twitched and shuddered, but he remained in his pose and didn't let off a sound. Ranma was actually kinda impressed. The dip had obviously been working on his pain threshold.

Kuno seemed to study the masked wonder, as if picking apart his pose for anything that he might want to use himself. Ranma rolled his eyes at this, wondering when penguin boy was going to recover from having his entrance interrupted. What, did he think all villains would just stand there and wait for him to finish his speech or something?

Kuno changed his posture, assuming one remarkably similar to what the rose throwing side kick was still in. "Now, shall you finish your introduction, or have you been suitably awed by my presence and wish to bow before my divine self?"

That seemed to get the tall, wiry masked man going again. "I am known as..." He suddenly twirled around, his unbelievably large cape somehow obscuring everything in a large radius around his body briefly while he tried to upstage the villain's Dramatic Entrance/Introductory Pose. Both of them had taken classes for this, at rival institutions of instruction, and the pride of their respective school was riding on their shoulders. A lot was hanging on this, the strangest of all pissing contests.

Red rose petals were now surrounding the masked man's face, while a few more flashed out to be caught by the pretty ladies standing around him, a final being launched to land a foot in front of Kuno. Tuxedo boy had changed his pose again, showing off how lean he was, how the suit also somehow outlined a few choice (tiny) muscles, and hoping that all were suitably impressed with how well he handled himself in a stiff and confining tuxedo. He finally ended with one hand pointed daringly at Kuno while the other held yet another rose beneath his nose, as if after doing all that he still had time to stop and smell the roses. At long last, he finished his sentence. "Tuxedo Mask!" There seemed to be a strong, dramatic drum beat in the background, but Ranma could see the newly proclaimed Tuxedo Masks lips, locked in a huge, perfectly white teeth on display smile, moving slightly as he provided his own background music.

Ranma couldn't believe this. He would get in a fight, yell some insults, get them all mad, and beat the snot out of whoever he was fighting. While macho in the extreme, it usually looked cool and would get him some spectators if there wasn't too much of a danger of objects being thrown haphazardly into the audience. After watching all that posturing, Ranma could see that most of the girls were even having trouble holding in their laughter.

Kuno regarded the other man as he held his Heroic Pose, duly impressed with the man's talent and timing. He sniffed at the rose imbedded into the ground at his feet, taking a step forward to squash it and grind the delicate petals under his heel. Tuxedo Mask seethed. Such an outrage! His signature rose, stomped on of all things!

"Not bad," Kuno said in perfect seriousness, "But you are nothing compared to me. Behold!" A black mist flashed up around him, obscuring him from view while his barely visible shadow spun around in what looked like a standard Clothing Quick Change maneuver. The mist suddenly dispersed, causing all those watching to shield themselves with an arm or hand over their eyes, and making Tux Boy drop his pose. Kuno was facing away from them, also somehow in a suit, though this one was white and black, different flaps and buttons alternating the color scheme. A light shone down on him, making it look like he was the only thing there worth paying attention to. Dramatic music played in the background, rising in tempo as Kuno turned toward those watching.

Before he could utter a word Sailor Moon appeared next to him and clocked him over the head with her Moon Scepter. "WILL YOU STOP IT WITH THE STUPID SPEECHES ALREADY!" She shouted in his ear, making all his hair stick straight out to the other side. A second after she stopped shouting an echo of her words were heard, having bounced around in the acoustic cavity known as Tatewaki's cranium. Tuxedo Mask chuckled for a moment until Usagi spun and froze him with a glare. "That goes for you, too. Honestly, that has to be one of the dumbest things I've ever seen."

Hearing sudden laughter erupt from behind her, the twin pony tailed blonde looked around at all those laughing their heads off and pouted. "What's so funny? C'mon, tell me. It must've been really good to get you all going like that." Nobody told her though, they were too busy laughing.

Tears welled up in Usagi's eyes. "Mercury? C'mon, somebody tell me. You're not all laughing at me, are you?" Ranma nodded, but fortunately she wasn't looking his way and her fellow Senshi shook their heads in denial, not wanting to send the poor girl into a crying fit.

Sailor Moon shook her head. "Well, you can tell me later. We still have a monster to kill." She gestured at the stunned evil minion standing next to her not a foot away. Everybody regarded the Sailor Senshi's leader for a moment before the girl realized what she had just said in relation to where she was standing.

With an "EEEK!" Of complete startlement Usagi swung her scepter again, somehow connecting with the villains face and sending him crashing onto his back. The young girl scampered away as quickly as she could, completely missing the fact that she could have taken him out right then and there, since after having fallen over he had once again seen up her short little skirt and blacked out from his nose bleed. Usagi REALLY wished she got to keep some of the undergarments that appeared on her after transforming. They would come in so handy after marriage.

But such wasn't the case, and Usagi scampered to freedom just in time for Kuno to recover and leap back to his feet. Most of the Senshi had managed to get themselves back under control while all that had been happening, so they missed seeing Usagi bypass the perfect opportunity to remove the evil.

Ranma looked around but couldn't find Tuxedo Mask anywhere. He snorted, having already guessed his type. Give some advice and do his one attack, then run off and pray that the girls would be able to handle whatever it was that they had been fighting. Ranma just knew anybody that would even bother to use a rose in a fight like Kuno would be a wuss. What did catch the younger Saotome's attention was the fact the green haired Senshi in the black skirt had shown up from wherever she disappeared to, and Ranma was determined to get a chance to talk with her for a while. Even if it was just to find out that she didn't know anything about a girl that was remarkably similar and yet not the same.

First though, Ranma knew he had to kill Kuno. Especially after that Flashy Introduction display. Nobody should live after doing something that horrible. He leaned over to Haruka. "You take low, I'll take high." She nodded. He glanced over his shoulder at the blonde haired girl. He managed to quickly tell her with his fingers that he wanted her to launch her attack whenever she was ready, and he would get both himself and the girl next to him out of the way in time. He looked over at Mars and also managed to tell her to distract Kuno so the blonde could launch her attack without fear of it getting returned to her. He somehow fit in there a message telling her to do it without getting herself hit again, which earned him a fierce glare. Ranma smiled almost wistfully back at her, which threw her for a loop so badly she completely forgot the reason she had been glaring at him and stopped.

Kuno, being the strange and tradition person (monster, whatever) that he is, calmly waited for both of his opponents to return their attention forward before charging them. Ranma, much more prepared this time, ducked under the blow and let it hit Haruka's sword, then spun himself into the air over their locked blades. His right foot flashed out during one rotation, coming down on the kendoist's collar, hoping to at least dislocate his shoulder with the amount of power he had put into the blow.

Kuno moved at that moment in an effort to end the deadlock he was in with the impossibly strong flower of femininity (Haruka) before him. Thus the foot came crashing down not on his vulnerable shoulder, but on something that was unused and completely undamageable. His head.

Ranma yelped in pain. Kuno's head was a LOT harder than it had been last time they fought. He rubbed his shin in mild agony, before leaping back to the offensive in assistance with the blonde swordswoman next to him. Not a few seconds later the red skirted Senshi launched several rings of fire just behind Kuno, but still close enough to necessitate him turning around at the threat, a fancy and complicated spin of his bokken behind his back to block a strike by Uranus. Ranma glanced over his shoulder and was happy to see the blonde doing her part, powering up what looked like a pretty good sized blast while Kuno was distracted.

Ranma nodded to Uranus, the Senshi next to him and the two of them dived at Kuno, Haruka striking low while Ranma leapt high, intending to pummel him from above. Kuno retaliated in a move that so completely surprised Ranma it scared him, Kuno LET GO OF THE BOKKEN and punched Ranma in the face. It was a wimpy punch compared to what he was used to, but it served its purpose and distracted Ranma enough to keep him from launching an Amiguriken. Haruka's attack was successful, slicing into his leg and causing the black mist to swirl madly around it. Even as they watched the deep slice was healed back up while as Kuno grunted in pain while batting back another flame arrow.

Fortunately this was enough to distract him from the other ranged attack. A great ball of lightning crashed into his back, shredding his shirt and sending him flying through the air to crash into the outer wall. Ranma shook his head at that. Nabiki was going to kill him. He might be better off running away and seeing if he could just avoid her for the rest of his life, or when she forgot about the debt he owed her, whichever came first. Probably death. He shook his head to get rid of thoughts of debt and money. He had girls to defend and a lost love to find, not to mention his own life! Ranma just knew that Setsuna was out there, he refused to believe that phone call he received had just been coincidence, not when the girl had sounded so perfectly like her.

"Mouko Takabishi!" Ranma shouted, sending a smaller, weaker, but much quicker to form energy blast crashing into Kuno's embedded body, smashing him all the way through the wall from the impact. He actually didn't need to use any words for that attack anymore since he had changed it from its original emotion based form. Now it was like the Kamehameha, all he had to do was gather as much energy from around and within him as he could contain between his hands before letting it go. The more he practiced the bigger and bigger his blasts got. Ryoga had discovered the same thing, and they had been practicing on each other for a little while on that trip Ranma had followed the lost boy on. That had been fun, especially since he didn't have to say things about Akane to get Ryoga really depressed for a good fight.

Ranma knew Kuno wasn't out of it, but he needed a plan, since the kendo practitioner obviously had a lot more energy than Saffron did. That made absolutely no sense, but Ranma didn't question it. Maybe Saffron had been limited by what he was, a Phoenix, while Kuno's only limitation was that he's an idiot. Whatever the reason Ranma wasn't sure if he had enough power to actually defeat the boy as he had done with his previous fight. Which was undoubtedly why he had gotten that phone call and had these nine helper. No, there were only seven there at the moment. Ranma had no idea where Saturn or Pluto had gone too, but he would need to track them down before Kuno managed to use them for some evil plot.

Ranma jerked in surprise. Saturn was probably still outside the Tendo compound, which might also be where Pluto was. Which is where he had just sent Kuno! With a shout he directed a couple of the girls to join him in his search for their opponent. A leap up to the wall where Mercury was told him that not only had the brown haired girl he had placed under her care earlier recovered, but that her name was Sailor Jupiter. He smiled at her, happy that he knew her name for certain now. It would be interesting to see who all these girls were without their costumes, but it wasn't something that he was dying to know. He already had enough girl troubles to last him a lifetime.

Mercury quickly scanned the area for Pluto or Saturn, and pointed across the way to a few feet over from where the Kuno shaped hole in the wall was. Everybody dashed over there, surprised to see Pluto going staff to bokken with the villain, while Saturn tried to get a few slices in from behind him. Ranma marveled at the green haired woman's technique. She was incredibly good, and he wondered why she never fought before in any of the battles he had glimpsed on the TV. She could have made things a lot easier for everybody else if she had. Oh well, maybe it was just training or something. The girls didn't seem to have all that much trouble anyway. Except with Saffron, but he was a different case.

The wounded, burned and fried flesh that Kuno had sported after Jupiter's attack were now healed again, something that annoyed Ranma to no end. He would have to see about getting to know Saturn better, he wanted to be able to heal instantly like that too. Ranma jumped down and grabbed Kuno's wrist, spinning him around to face him. Ranma tilted his head to the side to avoid the swipe before shouting "Katchu Tenshin Amiguriken!"

The 600 blows that he rained down on Kuno sure made Ranma feel better. This was a little revenge for that punch Kuno had thrown at him earlier, something so blatantly obvious, yet so surprising that Ranma returned the favor. Who would have guessed he would just walk up and punch him up and down his body a few times.

To all those watching save Pluto it had looked like Ranma had hit the guy about five times fairly slowly, but the results were not typical for that kind of attack. Kuno flew backwards again and landed roughly, coughing up some blood before the mists returned and whisked away the damage. The only way one could tell he had been hit at all was there were a few fist shaped holes in his clothes.

Kuno stood and glared at those arrayed before him. While Ranma was good, that green haired woman would have been able to beat him hands down. She would have to be the first to go, no question about it. Ranma was a little nervous, as he had never seen that expression on Kuno's face except when he was about to do his StrikeStrikeStrike technique, something that could have killed somebody of lesser skill than himself. Things had just gotten serious.

A sharp downward slash sent a black wave of energy flashing towards them, reminding Ranma of the Saotome Forbidden Techniques in how they were executed. Pluto jumped out of the way, while Saturn was off to the side and would be unaffected. The rest of the Senshi were above them on the wall and weren't in any danger, unless the wall collapsed.

Ranma spun around and shouted, "Get off the wall!"

Used to reacting to things shouted at them the girls responded quickly, leaping forward and to the side away from any danger they could see. Just as Mercury's feet left the surface Kuno's attack struck and cleanly sliced through a large section of the wall. There was a brief cracking sound and the entire length collapsed. The Senshi shuddered, thinking how much that would have hurt to fall on all those sharp and jagged chunks of concrete.

Ranma turned his attention back to the fight just in time to see Kuno flash his arms forward again, but no black wave formed. Pluto was facing away from Kuno also, having turned to see that all the girls had made it safely from Kuno's surprising attack. Little did they know that Kuno was as surprised as the rest of them. That hadn't been what he had expected at all, but he would take whatever he could get and claim it as his own doing.

Ranma noticed just in time that what Kuno had done was launch his bokken at Pluto, the twirling blade of death heading right for the green haired Senshi's neck. Not having enough time to shout a warning Ranma ran faster than he ever had in his life before in his effort to reach the girl. Not knowing just how strong Kuno was he didn't want to chance catching or kicking the thing away and having his leg ripped off, no matter how unlikely that would be. Having gotten his ribs cracked in the opening move had made Ranma rather cautious.

With a startled squawk Pluto was tackled around the waist just as something nicked her ear, drawing a couple drops of blood. A few strands of long green hair floated past as well, signifying just how close that attack had come to finishing the job. Without time to change his position at all the two of them crashed into the ground with Pluto on the bottom. Ranma's face was firmly planted into her right breast, his shoulder on her stomach and right arm wrapped tightly around her thin waist. A second later Pluto noticed where Ranma was and sported a huge blush. Ranma had been in similar postions with girls before and knew he was about to die. He decided to try and divert her attention and hope that she would either forget about the incident or be more calm after the fight was over. He would much prefer being maimed, than death.

Not changing his position Ranma stood quickly, back flipping away from where they had been lying just in time to see another bokken imbed itself an impressive distance into the concrete. Pluto was now slung over his shoulder, his hand holding her down while he used his other to help him with balance. Having her kick her legs like that wasn't helping him at all. Ranma jumped again and was surprised at not barely avoiding another attack. In fact, nothing happened for his next three instinctual dodges, so he turned and looked to see what was going on.

Kuno stood there, his mouth hanging open and jaw swaying in the light breeze, eyes wide, and a fountain of blood shooting from his nose. The Senshi looked a little grossed out, but kept him in the corner of their eye to make sure he wasn't doing a REALLY nasty attack. Ranma stood there in stunned silence for a second before realizing that Kuno was putting out a massive hot aura, perfect for one of the pig-tailed martial artists best attacks. Still holding Pluto over his shoulder rump forward, he dashing into the spiral, thankful that for once he didn't have to dodge crazed and insanely powerful attacks while priming the move.

He noted that Kuno always stayed looking straight at him, though he did nothing else. Ranma wondered about that until he was almost done with the attack and realized that Kuno wasn't staring at him, he was staring at just over his right shoulder. The shoulder that was carrying Pluto. In fact, that was right where Pluto's... With an alarmed look and an inhuman effort to keep his Soul of Ice Ranma looked over at Pluto's leg. He checked them on their way up from her knee to her thigh, then up and around to her hip and waist. Now, unless he was dumber than rice balls, the way she was sitting and the shortness of her skirt would mean that basically her entire backside was on display for Kuno.

Ranma blushed and sped up, somehow managing to keep the Soul of Ice, which should have been impossible, but Ranma managed to do it anyway. No wonder Kuno was making such a hot aura! Thinking on how Ami had looked in pretty much the same clothes when he had glanced up from below the wall, combining it with Setsuna's face, then superimposing that image over Pluto made his blush deepen. Fortunately he had just reached the center of the spiral and with the traditional sloppy uppercut shouted his attack. "Hiryu Shoten Ha!"

Keeping the Soul of Ice going allowed Ranma to move about in the sudden twister that sprang up around him, while using his life energy in a slightly different manner allowed him to also anchor Pluto to him without too many adverse effects. He calmly walked out of the man made tornado, quickly moving Pluto from his shoulder to the traditional damsel in distress carry, hopefully before anybody else realized why Kuno had frozen up the way he had. Though Ranma was happy he had managed to defeat Kuno, he knew he was going to die as soon as the Senshi in his arms figured everything out that had happened.

Ranma walked up to Sailor Moon, gently placing a still blushing Pluto on her feet next to the blonde. He turned and watched the twister, unconcerned about the winds lashing all around them. The rest of the Senshi were either holding onto signs or had crouched down to keep their feet on the ground. Ranma had to admit to himself that Kuno did indeed have a lot of energy if he had managed to make the tornado that big. Of course, it could also just be the fact that Pluto is incredibly sexy and had that kind of affect on men.

"Hey, Sailor Moon," Ranma said perfectly calm.

The wind buffeted girl looked up at him, fighting down her twin ponytails. If she didn't know better she'd think the things were purposefully attacking her. "Yeah?" She asked, wondering what he wanted in such sudden and horribly strange weather.

"The monster is up in the tornado. You might want to do your heart thingy now that he can't dodge it." Ranma pointed upwards at the black outline holding a bokken whipping around and around.

Usagi blinked. "Oh, yeah. I guess I should." She stood and smiled, also somehow completely ignoring the winds howling around them and lifting a couple of the smaller girls off their feet to wave around like flags from their anchoring poles. Despite their thick metal every single one of those signs and poles had some deep finger imprints from where they had been gripped. Later, a guy cut out those sections of the poles and sold them for a small fortune to a nut over the internet. Later that week 18 "authentic Senshi battle scenery" poles just like the first were also somehow created and sold, despite none of the following Senshi fights having anything to do with tornado's.

With a quick little dance and some fancy scepter twirling another ridiculously overpowered pink heart dealt swift justice to those who would dare threaten Japan, let alone those cute guys in Japan. Face it, if Japan didn't have any cute guys the Senshi would have packed up long ago and defended a country that had young men for them to swoon over.

Ranma nodded his thanks at her before turning his attention back to Pluto, hoping against hope that she wouldn't recall what had just occurred.


(NEW STUFF)


Pluto's mind was indeed dwelling on what had just occurred. She had been bent over Ranma's shoulder, looking directly at his cute little butt as he ran around, her hands supporting herself on his back, feeling those steel muscles flex and ripple beneath her fingers. Ranma had been an impressive specimen at 14, but now at barely 17 he made her mouth water like no other man ever had.

After a minute of the two staring at each other Setsuna snapped out of her daydream. "I thank you for your assistance, Ranma. We are all glad that no harm has befallen you."

Ranma nodded at her, trying to figure out why the girl reminded him of Setsuna so much. Even though she denied ever having known him previously that nagging sense of comfort and familiarity fueled his doubts.Setsuna opened her mouth as if to say something more, but abruptly bowed to him and said farewell.

"Wait!" Ranma cried, but the green haired woman had already disappeared into thin air. He looked around desperately, dashing around the Tendo yard and over the wall, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. He gave up after a minute, knowing that she could easily have gotten away even at walking speed by then. He had missed talking to her, the one thing that he had been determined to do after the fight was over. He was a bit confused by the disappointed looks the Senshi had on their faces, and they didn't seem to be directed at him either.

Ranma spotted Saturn standing a little ways to the side of the main group, with another two Senshi. One had long, light greet hair and the other had short blonde locks. Saturn stood between the two, looking as if she was waiting for a signal from them before leaving. He figured he would talk to her for a bit before all the girls left.

"Hey, Saturn!" Ranma called, trotting over to her. The other two Senshi turned to cooly regard him at his outburst towards their young ward. "I just wanted to thank you again for healing me. I'll have to get in contact with you after my next big fight. I sure could use your help, since Tofu left I haven't found anybody near as good as he was at healing."

Sailor Saturn giggled in delight. "I'd be happy to Ranma! I always help my friends."

The older two girls seemed to pay much closer attention after that, and it made Ranma wonder. Maybe they were protecting her or something.

"Well, what's your real name? I'd like to take you for some ice cream or something," Ranma said, using one of his favorite things, ice cream, to say thanks for what she had done for him.

"Sure, I'd love that! My name's Hot - mmff!" The blonde Senshi had covered Saturn's mouth with her hand.

"Ah, hehe," She chuckled nervously at the look she was getting from the young man before her. "It's a secret, nobody is supposed to know who we really are. Don't want our families affected by our jobs, you know."

Ranma nodded, thinking about all the times Akane had been kidnapped for one reason or another. People always seemed to think that if they took his loved ones he would bow before them and do whatever they wanted to get them back. Ranma, being a true student of Anything Goes and a Man Amongst Men developed his own technique for dealing with such situations. He'd just blow their door down and kick their butt, taking the girl back by force.

Ranma came up with an argument. "Yeah, but I'm a good guy. Don't you tell your allies who you are?"

The green haired woman looked down at the pleading eyes of her daughter, back up at the earnest expression of the pig tailed martial artist and sighed. "Maybe. We'll think about it, since if you know about us you'll have to know about all of the rest of the girls. I'll see what I can do, Ranma."

Ranma blinked in surprise. That had been more than he had expected, actually. Most of these secret identity people were adamant about it, no matter what the circumstances. However, this girl had known his name. How was that? He didn't think he was that famous, despite the fact that just about everybody in Nerima recognized him. He decided to ask.

"Hey, how did you know my name? Somebody been talking about me or something?"

All three of the girls blushed, bewildering Ranma. Saturn came up with a distraction technique. "Oh, let me introduce you! This is Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune." She said, pointing to the girls in turn.

Ranma bowed to those indicated. "Nice to meet you. You did pretty good in that fight back there with your sword," He complimented the blonde Senshi.

She smiled. "Thanks, you were doing pretty good yourself once you started taking it seriously. If Sailor Pluto warns you about something you best take it into consideration, since she doesn't bother doing that unless it's really serious."

Ranma nodded, having figured that part out already. Though he wasn't entirely sure why she had decided to help him then, since there had been several times when he almost died while he was still learning about those monsters and she hadn't bothered to contact him then. This fight hadn't actually been that hard, though having all those girls around to distract him had been a great help. If they hadn't been around he would have been much harder pressed to fight him, unable to get some breathing space with Saturn and get healed.

"Hey," Ranma said, realizing something, "You three wouldn't happen to know where Pluto went off to, would you? I wanted to ask her about something."

The three shook their heads in denial, though Ranma could plainly see the lie in Saturn's face. The two older girls did a much better job of hiding their guilt. That gave Ranma an idea. If he followed them to wherever they lived, maybe he could scout the area out and see if Pluto was around there. Then he could arrange to bump into her and hopefully get some answers to a few questions that were burning in his heart. Akane was cute and all, Ranma liked her, but she didn't hold a candle to his true love, Setsuna Meiou. Ranma knew she was close by, he could feel her. He just had to know why she had left him behind, why she had apparently faked her death when it seems she was still alive and knew where he was.

Given the sound of her voice over the phone, the way she singled him out and warned him about the fight once she had met him after Saffron, the way she seemed to be a little choked up when he spoke to her. If Ranma was reading this right Setsuna was Sailor Pluto, who for some reason was trying to keep him from recognizing her. That scared him a little. If she had already faked her death, and was now trying to keep him from identifying her, did that mean she didn't want anything to do with him anymore? He had always thought she really liked him, but maybe her feelings had changed somehow. Perhaps she had met somebody else?

Ranma shook those thoughts from his mind. It wouldn't do to have thoughts like that about his Suna-chan. He might start questioning his feelings for her and that was something he didn't want to do. So, how to track her down...

"Hey, I think the fighting's over," Ranma told the three girls in front of him. "So you all should probably be heading home now. Nothing more to do here."

The three of them nodded, though they were secretly hoping that Pluto would stop chickening out and come back to talk to Ranma. Usagi was trying to get the Inners to leave for ice cream, while most of them wanted to stay for the same reason as the Outers. After several more minutes it became obvious that she wasn't coming back and the girls heaved a collective sigh of disappointment. Maybe they could talk her into it if she didn't want to do it herself. Set up a meeting somewhere between them or something.

"I guess we'll be going now, Ranma," Uranus told him. Ranma nodded, waving at all of them as they bounded over the walls and buildings in the direction of Juuban. Ranma blushed heavily once they were all out of visual range. Those skirts sure did flap in the breeze, and when they were coming down from a leap the air would really lift them. The images Ranma got in those few seconds would stay vividly with him for the rest of his life.

With an almost evil grin, Ranma pulled out a sealed technique, still amazed that Genma would have such a thing when he practiced Anything Goes and abruptly vanished. He laughed to himself at the ease with which the move was kept up, the drain on his energy almost negligible. It involved controlling one's aura to the point where it blended perfectly with one's surroundings, thereby rendering the person performing the technique invisible. It's only weakness was the amount of concentration needed to maintain it, for a distraction of any magnitude would loose his aura from his control and he'd be visible again. The move's name? Umisen-ken.

He bounded over the wall, eyes peeled for the first sign of any girl in a too short skirt. He glimpsed one and dashed off towards it, hoping that it would be one of the Outers, since they seemed to stay together. Sure enough, it was Saturn he had seen, trailing behind Uranus and Neptune. He grew a little concerned about that. Saturn seemed to be having problems keeping up with the two older girls, despite how slow they were going. It took Ranma a few moments, but he eventually got what was happening.

Saturn seemed to be down on speed and strength compared to the others, and they were slowing down so she could keep up trying to get her to build her muscles to where she could keep up with everybody else. Ranma was glad for this in a way, as that allowed him plenty of time to figure out where they were and where they were going so he could return whenever he wanted. He didn't know how many times he was going to have to return to this neighborhood before he caught sight of Pluto. It would be far too convenient for them all to be living together, and Ranma didn't think there was a snowball's chance in hell of them all being close to each other.

Imagine his surprise when, several minutes after leaving the Tendo house he passed into Juuban, and the three girls all went into one house. He didn't see them remove their uniforms, since they seemed to be rather paranoid about their secret getting out. Of course, if somebody knew where they lived, finding out who they really were wouldn't be much of a problem. Fortunately, Ranma didn't care all that much as to who they really were. He only wanted to know about Pluto.

Ranma sat around for a good hour, but he saw no one coming or going. He waited another hour before he saw a young girl with purple hair, who he assumed was Saturn, exit the house. She looked like she might be going over to a friend's home. A few minutes after that two older girls left, climbing into a small convertible sports car and leaving in a cloud of tire smoke. They looked like Neptune and Uranus. Still no Pluto.

Another couple hours had the three Senshi return as a group, right before sundown. Ranma was starting to get a little cold, but was reluctant to do anything about it since anybody good at sensing aura's would be able to tell he was up there watching them. He was rather impressed with that girl's driving abilities, equally impressed that none of her passengers looked the least bit woozy as they climbed out.

The three girls went into the house again, and Ranma was starting to get a little depressed. He had been hoping that Pluto would have shown up since they all seemed like they knew were she was. Ranma guessed that she wasn't living with them. He would have to follow every girl around the next time they left and see if he could figure out where his former girlfriend might be. Course, now that he thought about it Ranma never did know where she lived when he was younger. He had just been told to call her at this number and she would meet him. He had asked her were she lived, but had just been told that it was far too far away for him to go there, and that she could always get to him faster than he would be able to get to her. It had upset him a little, but he knew he was going to be moving along pretty soon anyway, so he was kinda glad that all he had to do was call her to see her again.

But then she had died, and everything had gone downhill from there. Ranma really didn't know if he actually wanted Pluto to be his Setsuna or not. If she was, he would have to question everything that had happened to him when they were younger. He would have to question every female he knew if she had done that to him simply to be spiteful or to entertain herself. If that wasn't it and Setsuna really had died, then he wouldn't be able to see her again, but the fond memories he had of her wouldn't be tainted.

Well, Ranma decided he would return and see if he could spot Pluto next time. He knew the number still worked, he called it every once in a while when the memories rose up inside him. No one ever answered. It was strange that it still connected since there wasn't ever anybody home.

With a final last look at the surprisingly large house those three young women lived in Ranma bounded away, back to the Tendo home, and undoubtedly another fight with Akane. Ranma was starting to get annoyed with that girl, which was another reason he was seeking Setsuna. That had been real emotion, the feelings he had for any of the girls in his life now paled in comparison to what had surged through him when he was with his Suna-chan. He wanted that happiness back.


Setsuna was worried. She had sent herself to the time gates after the battle, unable to keep her composure with her 'Ranma' so close again, and when she peeked into the time gates she glimpsed him scouting out her house before she blocked it from her sight and looked at other things. Ranma was the one person that she would know nothing about but what he told her, the one person that would be able to surprise her. She was determined to uphold that promise, though if he was involved in fights she wouldn't hesitate to make sure that he survived them. Fighting usually involved the Senshi, and protecting them was her job, so she had justified that part in her mind.

The scare earlier that day with the monster, Kuno, was something that she didn't want repeated. After having taken Saffron down in a remarkable show of strength Pluto had been worried that the dark side would send something more powerful through the portal after him, and had decided that it would be prudent to check up on the next few battles should he be attacked. She praised and cursed herself for doing it, too.

Since she had seen his death as one of the main possibilities she had called to warn her former boyfriend about it. That had backfired when he had managed to recognize her over the phone, something that she thought she had fixed by now. But it had been a blessing in that he hadn't been hurt all that bad in the fight, and Hotaru had healed him of what injuries he had sustained. Still, she had checked the gates again after the fight and discovered that in many of the possibilities he had survived. He lost a limb, was gravely wounded or beaten so badly he was hanging on to life by a thread, but he somehow survived the ordeal. It seemed about even as to whether Kuno would have succeeded and actually killed Ranma had the pigtailed martial artist not had help.

But now she was trapped. Pluto had promised to herself that she wouldn't use the gates on Ranma, but now that she knew he was staking out their house she was nervous as hell. Should she go confront him? Should she go tell him who she really was and hope that whatever happened would be good? Setsuna didn't know, and thanks to her promise she never would unless she went out and did it.

Her heart was beating quickly, and her stomach kept twisting itself in knots from the nervousness and fear she was feeling, things she hadn't experienced in a long time. Frankly, they weren't very welcome. She like being in control, being at ease and knowing how things were probably going to turn out. But the rewards for suffering through this had been great the first time, and she didn't doubt for a moment that they would be the same the second time around. Just so long as she actually let it happen.

Setsuna knew from the looks she was getting from the other Senshi that if she didn't do something about Ranma soon they were going to. Mercury had noticed Ranma watching them the last time she had dropped by the Outer's house, and so now all the girls knew that he was watching them, following them around, unable to contain his curiosity, hoping yet not hoping that he would run across his lost love.

Setsuna had glanced outside the windows a few times and, sure enough, he had been out there, the only thing visible a small sliver of his face, but enough for someone that had picked up as many tricks as the Senshi of Pluto has. After a week of this indecision and emotional trauma a knock was heard at the door.

Setsuna, still too deep in thought to make a simple connection went to answer it.


Ranma had waited a week. He had followed every different girl around that had been to that house, and not one of them had led him to Setsuna, or anyone that even remotely looked like Pluto. He had been able to figure out who a few of the girls were thanks to their hair style and size, but some of them had normal enough hair that it was disguised too. That tall girl with brown hair had been one of them, but Ranma didn't let it bother him. His Suna-chan had been pretty distinctive, and he kept getting reminded of her whenever he was with Sailor Pluto. Ranma was certain that she was the one he was looking for.

Nabiki had noticed that Ranma was spending a lot of his time out and about and had asked him about it. He had simply told her that he was looking for a girl that owed him something, and turned down her offer for help. She had mockingly asked him if he was hunting down a fiance instead of the other way around. Nabiki had gone all goggly eyed when Ranma had remained perfectly serious, a forced chuckle his only show of emotion.

Nabiki was scared senseless when Ranma had directly threatened physical violence if she even pretended to mention to any living soul what she had just discovered. She had agreed to do it, as Ranma didn't give her time to get her senses back. He had seen her later cursing herself for lost opportunities, but Ranma just gave her his evil grin to shut her up. He amazed himself with his ability to pull it off, since he would never have really hurt her that much no matter what she did. Well, if it came right down to it he would have messed with her head so she would beg to die, but he wouldn't really physically hurt her.

Akane had been in a strange mood all week and had spent as much time as possible ignoring him, blatantly saying that she was mad and he had to kiss up to her to get her to start talking to him again. Ranma had simply been glad for the break and had returned the treatment, though it was hard to tell how much it was affecting her given she was always scowling when he saw her. Ranma wished Tofu was back, he would have been able to get the girl to start smiling again. Even if the man couldn't do anything for Kasumi he would have been able to get Akane out of her funk.

Shampoo and Ukyo had been surprisingly easy to avoid. Since they both had jobs they had to spend much of their time there, and given the short breaks they were allotted they didn't have much distance to cover when they went out to search for him. Over in Juuban Ranma had been pretty much left alone, though a few of the people wandering around had recognized him, something that Ranma was curious about before he realized that there were a few magazines and tabloids that told of the Nerima martial artists exploits. Ranma was just glad Nabiki hadn't thought of it first, or she would probably have demanded that he protect her while she got in the middle of his fights to get the good pictures.

But it had been a fruitless week, and Ranma wasn't going to wait around anymore. This was the only place that was remotely large enough that a woman could be living there without it bothering any of the other guests if she never left for a week. Especially since the three other girls that resided there were also Senshi. With his heart in his throat and butterflies flitting around in his stomach Ranma walked up to the Outer's front door and somehow managed to knock with a trembling hand.

Ranma was prepared for disappointment but not the sight that greeted him. The door opened and his love, his dead beloved Suna-chan stood before him as she always did in his haunting dreams. She looked at him blankly and said, "Yes?"

Ranma stood there with his mouth hanging open for a moment before he realized that she hadn't even recognized him. As soon as that thought had flashed through his head he noticed Setsuna's red eyes swivel downward from somewhere just over his hair to focus on his face. He continued to watch as they widened to saucer size, her mouth dropping open in shock. She obviously wasn't expecting him, despite the fact that if she was Sailor Pluto as Ranma was sure she was she should have figured that this would happen, given what their history was. Of course he would come after her!

They stood staring at each other for several more moments before Ranma seemed to deflate and he dropped his eyes down to his feet. "Hello Setsuna."

Meiou flinched. That had been the coldest she had ever heard his voice. She responded with the elegence born to her and polished by her experiences throughout her long life of unexpected situations. "Ah, er, I mean, fancy meeting you here, Ranma. No wait, that didn't come out right." She cleared her throat, trying to get her stomach and heart out if it. Why was her chest so tight? It felt like her clothes had suddenly shrunk several sizes. She couldn't be this nervous simply from talking to Ranma again for the first time in years. "Ahem *cough*. Hi!"

Ranma raised his eyes and stared at her, unable to believe what he was hearing. Was this the same calm and collected Suna-chan he had known? He looked into those distinctive dark red eyes of hers and came to the conclusion that this was his Setsuna, but she obviously wasn't dealing with this situation very well. It was almost as if she wasn't sure what to do with him now that he was standing in front of her again.

"What are you doing here, Ranma?" She asked, a forced cheerful smile that came out rather sickly on her face. Setsuna almost turned and banged her head against the door at such a stupid statement. She had to get herself under control!! This wasn't how she usually acted, Ranma was going to leave in disgust if for no other reason if she kept this up.

Ranma simply stared at her some more, and Setsuna's stomach did another couple of twist and a barrel roll under his intese gaze. Finally, he spoke.

"I'm here for you. What did you think?" There was the barest twinkle of humor in his eye, the only hint of emotion showing on his otherwise stone like face. Ranma forced control into his voice and expression hoping not to make this encounter as bad as it could possibly be.

Unnoticed by either of them, Michiru and Haruka were behind and to the side of Setsuna, blocked from Ranma's vision by the door. They were standing there in shock, unable to believe what had overcome their always quick witted and smooth talking school councilor and guardian of time. The two shared a look with each other, confirming their resolve that they would do whatever was necessary to get those two back together. They wholeheartedly approved of Setsuna going out with a guy that could change into a girl. And what a girl if the description given by Hotaru was accurate. The past week had been hard for the three girls living with Setsuna as they tried to get her to do something besides mope around the house and remember her time with Ranma. They had almost resorted to tying her up and dragging her over to the Tendo dojo, but when they had snuck in to her room with the rope she hadn't been in her bed.

"Oh, well, I wasn't sure." Setsuna said, her motor control coming back to her. Her facial expression returned to its usual, but Ranma could still read her. She was nervous, incredibly so, and Ranma wasn't sure why. "I mean, you might have gotten over me by now and decided to move on and were planning to ask one of the other girls here out on a date or something."

Ranma snorted and looked into her eyes, letting, encouraging his emotions to well up within his blue orbs and try and tell her everything that he couldn't seem to say to her at the moment. Setsuna almost took a step back in shock at the fire of love and desire that erupted in her former boyfriends eyes. She had almost forgotten just what an amazing blue his soul windows were, but now with them not a foot in front of her she was sucked back into their depths.

Ranma's lips curved upwards into a smile as he lost himself in Setsuna's eyes. They showed a lot about what she was feeling that her face never hinted at. It was one of the ways that Ranma had figured out how to read her when they had been together before, it had been his greatest challenge to figure out how to read her mind like she was able to do to him. Of course, just about anybody would be able to read his mind unless he was trying to keep his thoughts from showing on his face. But that was beside the point. He was doing what he had come here to accomplish, he was figuring out what she still felt about him.

What he was seeing wasn't too good, and if Ranma had thought it was bad when his stomach had twisted itself into three different knots with nervousness it was nothing compared to what he felt when her eyes returned none of the love and affection he was showing her. While this obviously wasn't a conclusive test, Ranma considered it to be so with the series of events that led to this encounter. Ranma had used Setsuna's eyes and face as his way of reading the older woman, and he had become very good at it. He didn't think that Setsuna would have figured this out and, after faking her death, work long and hard to guard her emotions better.

Control. While Setsuna had been proud of it at the time, now it was her undoing. "Setsuna..." Ranma whispered in shock, not wanting to believe the coldness and lack of feeling he was reading. Why had her physical reaction been so great when she could now look upon him and feel nothing? Had the shock of seeing him for the first time just been guilt at having been found out?

"Oh Ranma, I haven't seen you in the longest time." Setsuna said, her voice unconsciously dropping down to frigid levels when her emotions are pushed almost to their breaking points. When it mattered Setsuna prided herself on her coolness under fire. She had started to loosen up and let her emotions out a little when she had been around the other Outers. Here however, she wasn't presented with the familiar face of one of her fellow Senshi, but the visage of the man that had caused her to tighten up her emotional reigns.

While his reappearance should have signaled an end to that period in her life, she had trained herself too well and was falling back on her old habits of burying her feelings and desires under ice. Much like Ranma's Soul of Ice, but she didn't know how to turn it into an useful attack as well.

"Setsuna, I saw you die. You bled to death not a foot away from me. Why are you here now? Why did you do it? Why did you want to leave me so much as to kill yourself?" Ranma's voice had a slight waver in it, something he was willing to allow himself given how much it had hurt him to just admit she had faked her death to get away from him.

"I did it for the good of everyone. I couldn't have you still around when the monsters started attacking. I couldn't drag you into that, you never would have survived and then I would have had your death on my hands." All said with enough chill for icicles to form dripping from her words.

"Did you ever think that that I would have gladly died if only to protect you? Did you ever think that at times I want to kill myself whenever I remember the sight of you that day? Did you ever think that until today I didn�t even realize that I was living until I felt the sensation of your presence again?� Ranma said unsteadily as he forced the terrible images from his mind.

Setsuna didn't even realize what she was doing, though the girls behind her winced at every word. They felt so sorry for Ranma, they didn't even want to think about how each of those words must have stabbed into his heart with a delivery like that.

Recieving no responce from the woman, Ranma assumed the silence was her answer.

"I see. So you just decided to do this, despite how much you saw I could do at the time? I could have taken down some of these monsters that have been showing up even back then." Ranma's voice had gone from a heartbroken tone to one of equal chill as Pluto's.

Setsuna flinched at the change in his tone of voice, but didn't even think that it was because of her. Michiru and Haruka flinched as well, holding each other's hand tightly to protect them from the cold front coming from the door.

"Well, yes, you could have. But you fought Kuno, you fought Saffron. There would have been no way you could have succeeded against the likes of them, and there have been monsters even more powerful than those two. How would you have managed without your current abilities?" Setsuna regarded him for several moments, intending for it to be a loving evaluation, but it come across as an examination of grade A beef. "Beside's, I wouldn't want anything to spoil those good looks of yours."

While the comment had been made with the best of intentions, it cut Ranma in half. He stiffly rose to his full height and looked Setsuna in the eye once more, the chips of blue ice his had become almost making the older woman burst into tears, wondering what she had done to cause that. The shimmer of regret and pain Ranma glimpsed caused him to pause slightly in what he had been about to say, doubt and disbelief that Setsuna could be like this tugging hard at his heart and conscience. When the cold returned to her eyes he sighed to himself and spoke.

"I guess since you went to all the trouble of dying to avoid me, I'll stay out of your life from now on, Ms. Meiou. Goodbye." Ranma turned and walked off, his whole body hurting with every step he took He almost fell to the ground and started crying again like when she had first died. The heart wrenching ache he felt in his breast was about the same, and Ranma wasn't sure if he was ever going to be able to trust girls again after this. It hurt too much to let them in just so they could abuse him, especially with distrustful women like Akane betrothed to him.

Setsuna stiffened and opened her mouth to call him back, but nothing would come. Her mind had frozen, along with her heart, at hearing that. While it had been one thing for herself to have died and to let him find love with a normal girl, it was another thing entirely to have him know she was out there, and hurting a little more each day that they lived this lie that had somehow come about which caused him to believe she hated him. But she had no idea how to change that, she had no idea how to get him to return to her, she had no idea what would happen if she tried to go after him. Given how powerful he was she wasn't sure if throwing herself at him would be a good idea. But nothing she could think of to say would bring him back to her, it would all come out too hollow, since whatever had caused him to ignore the warmth in her voice was obviously still in effect.

Michiru and Haruka looked at each other again before stepping forward and shoving Setsuna with all their strength. The green haired woman was so startled by this she shrieked in surprise, arms flailing in a desperate search for balance as she shot forward uncontrollably.

Ranma turned in an instant at the sound of the shriek. He was shocked stiff to have his vision filled with abundant Plutonian cleavage before she impacted against him and they tumbled over backwards, Ranma's arms instinctively wrapping around the tall woman to keep her from hitting the ground too hard.

They came to rest with Ranma flat on his back while Setsuna straddled him, her short business like skirt having ridden up to her mid thigh to make room for the young man beneath her. His arms were still around the girl, holding her tightly to him. Setsuna lifted her head and looked down at Ranma, the shock of the event snapping the girl out of her emotional wall and releasing the desperation in her.

"Ranma!" She cried, flinging her arms around his neck and hugging herself tightly to him. "What did I say? Why were you going to leave me?"

Ranma lay under her in shock. This was a place he had dreamed about being many, many times. But the circumstances were all wrong and throwing him for a loop, it was as if what he had just gone through wasn't enough. He simply tightened his grip on the girl held in his arms. "You were trying to get rid of me," He said simply into her ear.

Setsuna shook her head in denial, not wanting to believe that she had done that. "No, I wouldn't have done something like that. I wouldn't want you out of my life now that I don't have to worry about you dying."

Ranma frowned. "That's not what you said a minute ago." His distrust and hurt from a minute ago was still clutching his heart, and it was going to take something monumental to get him to open up to her again.

"I can't even remember what I was saying at the door," Setsuna half lied. It had just occurred to her what had probably happened earlier in their conversation, why Ranma had looked so hurt every time she had spoken to him despite what she had been trying to convey with her tone of voice. "I had been thinking about something when you showed up and I was caught completely off guard. I've been trained to hide my emotions in such situations, so that's what I was doing. I didn't mean to sound like that, it was supposed to be like before. Like when we were engaged."

Ranma closed his eyes, his mind filled with fond memories, with wonderful feelings, remembered touches and caresses burning along his skin, spurred on by the lovely smell of Setsuna's green hair. "Yeah, we were engaged, weren't we." Ranma chuckled to himself at that, unable to believe that he had actually engaged himself to another woman when he already had half a dozen girls he was promised to. Not that he had known about that at the time, but still, he was struck with the humor in the situation.

Setsuna, also lost on memory lane, forgot for the moment that they had just been reunited in about the worst way possible. "What's so funny, love?" She murmured in his ear, nuzzling her cheek against him.

The loving tone and familiar words also transported Ranma back to that happier time, before Nerima. "I was just thinking about the fact that I had proposed to you when I already had a dozen fiancees. Heh, I don't think I would survive if I somehow ended up married to eight girls."

Setsuna giggled, stretching herself out full length atop him, much as she had done before. The two thrived on touch, and the more skin in contact with the other the happier they were. This, while inappropriate for many, had been one of their favorite relaxing poses. "I'm sure you'd manage somehow if it actually came down to that."

Ranma snorted, petting her head and running his fingers through her long emerald locks. "I'm sure you'd think so, given how open you are about other women. I still never understood that about you. You're so different than any other girl I know. Jealous, yet willing to share."

Setsuna blushed. "I didn't think you'd remember that. You were so tired and out of it I thought you were just responding to my voice. I don't think I could have told you that if I knew you were actually paying attention."

Ranma chuckled again. "That'll teach you to underestimate me, even if I hadn't slept after 48 non stop hours of training."

Those words served as a reminder to all that had happened over the past hour and the loving, tender mood evaporated. Or maybe froze, would be a better description. Ranma stood and deposited Setsuna on her feet before him, his fingertips lingering on her skin for far longer than was necessary. The Guardian of Time noticed this, and hoped.

"Look, Setsuna..." Ranma paused, unable to form his thoughts into words. He stared at her hard for several seconds, long enough for the girl to open her mouth to try and figure out what the situation between them was, but she was cut off before she could begin. Unable to express himself verbally, Ranma resorted to the only thing he was constantly good at; physical action.

He reached out and grabbed her into a hug, his now taller and larger frame allowing him to surround Setsuna in his embrace. The older girl melted against him, hoping that this was a good sign, subconsciously noting he was an even better hugger now that he was bigger than her.

"Suna-chan," Setsuna's heart soared at the term of endearment he whispered in her ear, his hot breath sending a delicious tingle racing through her body. "I don't really know all that's happened between us since I first suspected you were Sailor Pluto, but I figure if I give you another chance, you'll redeem yourself enough so that I may call you my fiance with pride once again." Ranma loosened his hold on her to gaze into her eyes.

"Are you willing, Suna-chan? Are you willing to be with me again in the hopes that all the doubts and fears that have cropped up since you left me the first time will be smoothed over and we can get married like we had first planned? If what I experienced in those first few months are even a tenth of what I can expect after marriage, I'd give you a ring right now."

Setsuna blushed. "Yes, Ranma. I'm willing, I'll do it. I will make you believe in me again. I know I can do it, I just need a little time and you'll see that what we had before is nothing compared to what will be."

Ranma gave her a dazzling smile, one she returned in force. "I just hope that I don't get killed by my other fiance's."

Setsuna looked at him strangely for a moment at his mention of fiance's, then sighed. "I can tell we have a lot of catching up to do, Ranma. Why don't we go inside and find out what's happened since we last knew each other. I have a lot of questions as to how you became as powerful as you are, and I know you'll want to know what, how and why I did what I did. Plus that little fiance thing you just mentioned."

Ranma loosened his grip on her some more and turned them back towards the house, an arm still around her slim waist. "Yeah, I'm sure we got some interesting stories to tell before this is all sorted out. Just so long as I get the entire story, like where the heck that phone number connects to, I'm sure everything will work out."

Michiru and Haruka, still standing in the doorway watching the events unfold between their oldest and wisest and her old flame wondering what they had been talking about. The two were whispering in each other's ears so the two girls assumed it was a good thing. They usually didn't whisper unless they were being loving, so they assumed it was the same with Setsuna and Ranma. Now, how to get them to spill the beans on what they had talked about.

Uranus and Neptune watched in relief as Ranma and Setsuna turned to head back into the house, smiles on their faces and their bodies touching in as many places as possible while they walked. Sure that everything had somehow been resolved the two younger girls stepped back and let them into the house, closing the door after them. Ranma and Setsuna were still quietly talking with each other and had completely ignored Michiru and Haruka when they passed by, though they perked up at hearing about a really cute redheaded girl that Ranma was well acquainted with.

End.






(AUTHORS NOTES) No, it's not the end. I just figured that here would be a good point to stop with this particular chapter, book (hah!), oneshot, whatever. There will be a little intervening time where Ranma and Setsuna get to know each other again, then they shall have to deal with the Nerima Wrecking Crew. I will be starting it up again at that point, instead of trying to write every single thing that happens between now and then. Normally I probably would try and do that, and I'm pretty sure many things will be put into the next segment of this that will deal with that period of time, but I wanted to try and progress along since there will be much more happening after the fiance's are dealt with. With that in mind, here is the first part completed. Now I just have to go back over the entire thing and rewrite anything that doesn't flow well enough for me. I won't be making any major changes, but sentences and paragraphs will be redone to make everything more polished.

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