Child of Love Children of Hate chapter one by jay f kominek Sailor Moon is the property of Takeuchi Naoko and some corporations. Ranma 1/2 is the property of Takashi Rumiko and some other corporations. I only claim ownership to the plot. It is not my intention to violate their copyrights, but instead to entertain. I can only hope to do so with a fraction of their skill. This story is meant to be distributed for free. Please do not change it, or stick your name on it. Pre-readers, to whom I am grateful: elfman, Lord Talon, hachiman, roslyn, Weeb Comments and feedback in all forms are appreciated. This story takes place after the ends of both Ranma 1/2 and Sailor Moon. I mix and match the manga and anime continuities as I see fit. Minor details of the original series may go out the window in the face of artistic freedom. :) - - - - - - - - "One must understand that when we first met the reincarnated Senshi, they were unable to grasp any source of power besides that of their own magic." - Ranma Saotome Makoto looked at the two people standing in the middle of the street. Not 20 minutes ago, they'd claimed to be the famous Saotomes. She hadn't believed them initially, and rightly so. She was slowly becoming more than merely convinced, though. After Rei had demanded hard evidence of their claim, the two of them had jumped out of a window. They were on the fifth floor. Not even Sailor Jupiter was going to try a jump like that if she had a choice about it. Sure, she'd survive, and the bones in her legs would even heal straight after a few days (if she stayed Sailor Jupiter the whole time), but it wouldn't feel at all pleasant. And those two.. So the assembled girls had hurried down the stairs, to find Akane and Ranma waiting a ways off, smiling. They waited for only a minute before running off, quickly. It didn't take long for the girls to completely lose them. Then, right as soon as they'd stopped and just about given up, Ranma and Akane had appeared behind them. "Well, I suppose if you want to stop here, thats okay.." said Ranma, looking around lazily. "So, you don't think we'd be able to do anything to some demons, huh?" Now, Ami with her computer out, spoke up. "Well, Mrs Aino or, er Saotome doesn't have any magic at all, and you just seem to have a tiny little bit clinging to you.." "Right, thats just my curse, its not like the stupid thing could help me, anyways." Slightly confused, Ami continued, "..and even that isn't even close to my level of power, let alone Usagi or Minako's." Now it was Ranma's turn to be confused. "What would we be doing with magic? All it ever does it get me in trouble, why there was the time with that evil spirit.." A cough and a look of promised violence from Akane stopped Ranma in mid-ramble. "Yeah, er, so, anyways, what would we need magic for just to beat up some demons?" Ami stood wordlessly. She wasn't quite sure how to respond, since she wasn't aware of any means to fight something like demons without the use of magic. Seeing the confusion on young Ami's face, Akane thought to try and get to the point. "What do you girls use magic for?" Ami was happy to again know what she was talking about. "Well, the Sailor Senshi magic makes us faster, stronger, increases endurance, and gives us magical attacks." "Like what kind of magical attack?" The girls looked between each other, and Makoto spoke up. "I'll show them." After some nodding, Makoto called out her transformation phrase. "JUPITER CRYSTAL POWER!" Looking back to see a unimpressed Ranma and Akane, she faced down the street before letting loose a Sparkling Wide Pressure up into the air. Akane nodded in thought. "Not bad. Something like that might catch Ryouga's attention. Here, this should be about like that." Drawing back her right arm while extending the left one forward, Akane summoned her ki, and formed it into a red sphere in her right hand. Speaking only slightly louder than normal, Akane announced the attack, "Rekka Hokan![1]". Right arm shooting forwards along the line made by her left arm, the ball shot off into the night sky, swelling to about the size of a basketball right after passing her left hand. All of the girl's jaws had dropped, but Rei and Ami were the only two who needed to worry about people parking in their mouths. "Tha.. that was ki, wasn't it?" Rei asked, having managed to rein in her astonishment. "Yeah, that was one of the simpler attacks." "Ha.. how do you manage to give it shape?!" "You have to use emotional energy to make your attacks strong enough to be useful." "But, how did you do that without magic?" inquired Ami. "It isn't magic! It is ki! We can use it to do the other things you use magic for." "Like what?" "Well, we can make ourselves faster by using ki and a technique called the Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken. You saw the most advanced forms of it the other day." Whipping her computer out, Ami asked if Akane could demonstrate the Amaguriken. "Well, the basic Amaguriken just lets you grab chestnuts out of a fire. Its the revisions that let you do useful things. You saw one of them earlier. Thats the final revision. The first revision is merely a speed punching technique." With that, Akane cocked her right fist and let fly Saotome revision #1. "Impossible.." said Ami, eyes straining to pop out of her face. "Akane's fist was moving at an average of 750 meters per second![2] Thats way beyond anything we can do." Deciding to give the introductory lesson to advanced Amaguriken usage on the spot, Ranma spoke up, "Same thing can be done with your feet, or whole legs, or whatever other body part you want. Reflexes are increased by affecting the mind. Endurance can be increased by speeding up the healing process. The Amaguriken can't be used to affect strength, though." While Ranma was ready to go into details, Akane was not. "Listen, as much as Ranma's ego would love to stand around all night and talk about martial arts techniques, I'd like to get back to my daughter." With little hint of disappointment, Ranma joined his wife, who was already walking back. "Wait, if you want to help with the next demon, how do we get ahold of you?" called out Usagi. That managed to stump the pair, until Akane came up with a solution, "Well, how do you normally contact Minako?" Disappointed that she hadn't thought of it sooner, Ami responded, "Ah, we have communicators. We left Mina's in her room after we took her to the hospital. You could carry it around. Bottom drawer on the left." Nodding, Ranma and Akane left 6 very surprised girls to return to their daughter. * * * Dropping her guise of Sailor Jupiter, Makoto walked the short distance back over to her group of friends her eyes conveying a message of astonishment. Makoto opened her mouth to speak, but everyone else took that as a cue to speak, too. After it calmed down a bit, Haruka demanded, "Well, Ami, what do you think? If they show up at the fight, are we going to be hindered trying to keep them out of trouble?" "I'm not sure," Ami said, "my computer could not measure the power of Mrs Saotome's attack. Various other physiological measurements are quite surprising, though. Their bodies are in perfect condition, and in fact, do not show signs of aging past about 25. I don't know how old they are supposed to be, but Mina is just 16, so they must be at least 30." Ami's speech decayed into near-rambling as she talked about heart rates low enough that most people would be dead, and how their bones had been broken so much that they were now quite a bit thicker than normal. "Ami!" "Oh, yes?" "Will they be able to keep up?" "Well, thats hard to say.. if any non-Senshi can, it would be them." "I suppose that will have to do." * * * * * * * * Kneeling before the dinner table, Ranma across from her, Akane asked "What you said earlier.. about unsealing the forbidden techniques.. did you mean it?" "Well, not really. I mean, I'll do whatever it takes to get the people who did this to my poor Minako, but we probably shouldn't start using advanced techniques right off the bat.. we don't know who we're dealing with, after all, and we don't want to hand the techniques over to them.. Besides! Its not like we can't take 'em down with standard techniques!" Akane nodded sagely and sipped her tea. * * * * * * * * A man on a dimly lit stage spoke, "Now, mother, what's the matter?" "Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended" answered a familiar voice. "Hamlet" didn't get a chance to respond, however. The unfamiliar buzz of her daughter's communicator distracted Akane. Having jumped suddenly, she threw off her fellow actors. "Ah, excuse me.." mumbled Akane as she hurried out of the room to try and figure out how to activate the communicator. After fumbling with the few buttons for a second, she managed to get a picture of Ami's face on the dial. "-ossing some cars around outside of Kashu Coffee." Nearly shouting Akane informed them, "I'll go get Ranma and we'll be right there!" From the blasted look on Ami's face, Akane decided that maybe she didn't need to speak quite that loud. * * * * * * * * Standing on the high school sports field brought back plenty of memories to Ranma. Most people would be thinking about football games, or maybe the cheerleader under the stands. Ranma thought about duels with Ryouga, Ms Hinako, Happosai, etc, etc. Ranma watched as Taketo hit the softball. *Hmm, looks like its coming this way, better dodge in a second, don't want to look too- "RANSOU!" the shout came from Akane, standing on the other side of the field, by the fence. *SMACK* -fast. Ouch.* "Idiot, why didn't you dodge that?" asked Akane, now standing no more than 10 feet away and closing at a brisk pace. "I was, uh, distracted by someone." "Hrmph, how impolite of them. Oh, hey, there is a demon attacking! We've got to go!" Having instantly caught Ranma's full attention, Akane grabbed him and began dragging him away from the field. * * * * * * * * Sailor Mercury would describe herself as quite distraught right about now. Really, most people would be wetting themselves were they in her situation. She was, at this moment, lying in a shallow hole in the sidewalk. This hole was conveniently shaped exactly like her. That probably had something to do with the fact that the demon had used her to make it. She hadn't felt this helpless since Vesves had taken Nishio's dream mirror and trapped her inside of a computer. That had driven her to her Super form. Discussions with Pluto, led her to believe that nothing waited beyond the Super form for any Senshi but the Moon Senshi. No getting out of this one on her own. Sailors Moon, Mars and Neptune were also out of action. Tuxedo Mask was standing over Moon whose wings were frayed and tattered, trying to wake her up and generally fretting. That was about all he could do with a broken throwing/sword arm. Poor Tuxedo Mask, always showing up to help Sailor Moon and then getting pounded on. Pluto and Saturn weren't present. Probably a good thing. Mercury wasn't sure if Saturn would try to use the Death Reborn Revolution on this thing, and she didn't really want to find out, either. This left Jupiter and Uranus still standing. They'd both launched their most powerful attacks any number of times. In fact, all of the present Senshi had. At least the demon had enough decency to be oozing something from a couple of wounds. Propping herself up, Mercury was able to get a good view of Jupiter making a nice Sailor Jupiter-shaped hole in the wall. At least Mercury could lay down in hers. Uranus had apparently taken stock of the situation, and decided to back away for a second, hoping that one of the other Senshi would get up to give her some help. * * * Sailor Uranus was not a happy camper. She and Jupiter were the last ones standin- scratch that. She was the last one standing. Not that she thought the Ainos- er- Saotomes, would be of any help, but they'd called them a good 5, 10 minutes ago and they still weren't here. If they'd promised to help they should at least show up and take a pounding, too. Deciding to act graceful from a bit farther away, Uranus began to back pedal in the direction of Neptune. * * * Mercury, while previously quite upset over the current state of things, was about to become even more upset. Seeing the last mobile target moving away, the demon had started to look for the immobile target most likely to become mobile soon. Poor Mercury had been just about to start lifting herself off the ground when she became the demon's new target. Moving at a level of speed Mercury had only recently realized possible, the demon charged her. Bracing herself for an attack, she- er. She found herself a good 8 or 9 meters from where she'd been. Looking around, quite confused, she saw the demon, also looking confused, and two people in matching red and black with black hair. Protective reflexes tried to kick in, but found her muscles uncooperative. That gave her brain time to analyze the past few days and come to the conclusion that the two people were the Ainos. "No, the Saotomes" her brain told itself. * * * Akane was both upset that it'd take them so long to arrive, and relieved that they'd made it there when they did. On the one hand, she knew they could move a lot faster if they really wanted to, but Ranma had refused to use the requisite techniques. However, arriving when they did gave her a chance to help out Ami, which gave her a warm fuzzy feeling inside. Ami had always reminded her of her two older sisters wrapped into one. A Kasumi with Nabiki's intelligence.. or was that a Nabiki with Kasumi's kindness? Watching the demon jog over to Ami out of the corner of her eye, Akane leaked a bit of ki into her legs and arms. *Don't want to lose any speed when I pick Ami up.. or wrench my arms out of their sockets..* After setting Ami down, Akane expended a bit more ki to disperse her inertia and immediately rejoin Ranma. Luckily, they'd changed outfits on the way over. No sense in being naked in front of a demon for the few milliseconds it took change. Ranma was enough of a pervert without flashing for evil given physical form. So. There they were. Ranma and Akane Saotome. They were standing a few meters away from each other, and the demon, roughly forming a triangle. Speaking up, Ranma announced in an uncustomarily level tone, "I'm gonna tear you apart." * * * This surprised the demon. Of late its adversaries had been spouting all kinds of semi-poetic nonsense about how they were going to punish it and yadda, yadda, yadda. It was almost enough to make it ill. A number of things struck it as different about this one. It wasn't wearing a skirt, it was taller, and wasn't a teenage girl. Oh well, it was still a human.. Not wasting any more time in contemplation, the demon charged Ranma with the same kind of speed. Surprisingly (to the demon), Ranma wasn't there when it arrived. Instead, it heard a voice behind it. "Pathetic. An opponent as helpless as you could drive my ki attack to Perfection." * * * Taunting the demon a bit in hopes of getting it to let off some hot ki had proved futile. Oh, the demon had become upset alright. He'd dodged the attack, but not even half as soon as he'd have liked. This thing was fast. And while it had become quite upset, it wasn't giving off even the tiniest bit of hot ki. *At least I know not to fall back on the Hiryu Shouten Ha. Can't hurt to keep up harassing it, though. Angry opponents get sloppy.. or let off Rekka Hokans.* Ranma mentally cringed. "Pathetic. An opponent as helpless as you could drive my ki attack to Perfection." Not strictly true, but it had the necessary ring to really get an opponent upset. Standing there, oblivious to the demon's pending action, Ranma was making a target out of himself that would be unforgivable if he'd been informed of one teeny-tiny fact. Demons don't use ki attacks, they use magical attacks. Hence the large Ranma-shaped hole which managed to appear right next to the slightly smaller Sailor Jupiter-shaped hole in the wall. Without the ability to sense his opponent building up for a ranged attack, Ranma couldn't hope to dodge. Unperturbed by being knocked through a brick wall, Ranma lept back to his feet and quickly took to dodging and weaving at random. He wasn't about to be caught by the same thing twice. Akane took the hint and began to run and leap about the scene of the fight, as well. Confronted by two targets cavorting about at speeds even it considered mildly impressive, the demon prioritized. First thing to do was to get them to stop moving around like that. Firing a multitude of magic blasts that resembled inky black nothingness at Ranma and Akane, the demon quickly found that shooting at them was futile. So, it tried shooting at random, hoping to get lucky. That didn't work either. Finally it realized that these two targets had shown interest in the other targets, so maybe it could use them as bait. * * * *Impossible..* was the thought that kept going through Sailor Uranus' head as she watched Ranma and Akane. Her magically endowed speed had allowed her to save the other Senshi from various forms of devastating attacks in the past, but Akane had just run in with speed that slightly surpassed Uranus', grabbed Mercury, and moved her 20 meters. That wasn't that big a deal, with enough work Uranus could probably have built herself up to that kind of speed and strength. The big deal was what Akane had done when she'd set Mercury down. One instant, she was moving in one direction at around 30 meters a second, and the next instant, she was moving just a little bit slower, in the completely opposite direction! Physics was more Pluto's specialty, but Uranus was pretty sure what Akane had done defied at least a few laws of physics. Uranus' disbelief only increased when Ranma and Akane began to put on an acrobatics display which made her think of a pair of Olympic gymnasts who'd forgotten about the law of gravity. * * * *Oooo, this thing is getting on my nerves,* thought Akane, as she barely dodged yet another one of those blasts. *Hmm, I think I've got a way to ruin this thing's day.* A small smile crossed Akane's face as she started coordinating her leaps to carry her a bit farther away. Reaching what she believed to be a safe distance, she noticed the demon seemed to have ceased firing. Akane stopped and began pulling her ki in and concentrating it into the distinctive patterns needed. Finally ready, Akane began to announce her technique. "SPL-" "No!" screamed a now distracted Ranma. His interruption's goal had been achieved, however. Akane lost her tenuous grip on the ki patterns needed and felt them disperse harmlessly. Focusing on Ranma, and preparing to bash him a good one for distracting her, she stopped. The demon was rushing towards Ami again. There wasn't any way she could make it in time, but Ranma could. And did. Placing himself in its path, Ranma let fly an unannounced Mouko Takabisha[3] at what passed for the demon's face. It didn't seem to care. Instead, it whipped some tentacle things around and grabbed Ranma. A game of "make Ranma into a pile of mush" then began. This didn't sit too well with Akane. She was the only one who was allowed to beat her husband senseless. Akane summoned all of her ki, she was going to put an end to this thing now, no more fun and games. Her visible battle aura went from being a few wisps of occasional red to a small bonfire, lifting loose pieces of gravel off the ground and generating a stiff breeze. And then, it was all gone, worked into a massive ball of ki, held in her left hand. Casually aiming her left arm, she let fly the ball. Oddly, it didn't fly with the speed of most ki attacks, but instead chugged along almost lazily through the air. It missed, passing a meter or so to the demons left. Barely having had to dodge, the demon was clearly amused by this turn of events, that ball of whatever it was had looked awfully painful. It was odd, though, Akane didn't look at all surprised. *FSSST KLABWALM!@#!* The ball had exploded into a small fire storm after passing the demon by little more than its diameter. Clearly pleased, Akane belatedly announced the attack, "Hah! Fuhatsudan Kibou[4]. They always fall for that." Seeing the demon down, and probably not planning on moving soon, Akane skipped over to where Ranma lay. "Hey moron, you alright?" she inquired in a nearly school girl tone. "Ugh. No thanks to you. Do you really have to go tossing ki bombs around near other people?" "Would you rather the demon still have you?" Rubbing his head, Ranma eeked out a "Well..." Quickly trying to change the subject, Ranma looked around for something interesting. "Hey, look! That demon is still moving!" And it was. In fact, it was just managing to pull itself up onto its hoof-feet-things. "Aw man, how much does it take to put one of these things down. And it isn't giving off any hot ki, either.." Revelation striking, Ranma inquired, "Hey, how about that technique you were talking about the other day? That revision to the Hiryu Shouten Ha?" Akane was mildly surprised she'd been listening to him. She may be one of the few people in Ranma's bracket, but that didn't mean she was anywhere close to Ranma's level of skill. This meant he had a tendency to get a bit distracted when she proposed new revisions. If he really wanted them, he'd usually just make them up on the spot. "Yeah, that one." Still stunned, Akane wondered aloud "Think we can pull it off without any practice?" Ranma waved his hand dismissingly and put on his stupid grin, "Sure, why not? Lets go for it." Jumping to his feet, Ranma took up a position off to one side of the demon, and began to gather his ki. Once Akane had taken up her position, and the demon was looking nervously between the two of them, she announced "I'll lead off." Receiving a confirmation imperceptible to anyone but her, Akane began. "TSUIN.." She was running clockwise around the demon, fast. "..HIRYUU.." Ranma was running now, too. "..SHOUTEN.." Vast streams of hot ki were trailing from Akane now. "..HA!" shouted Ranma, who had streams of down right cold ki trailing him. On that word, both Akane and Ranma launched upper cuts that never connected, but instead triggered the ki tornado they'd setup. * * * Actually on her feet by now, Sailor Mercury was looking around. Neptune, Mars and Moon were moving again. Jupiter was wobbling about uneasily, holding her head. Making a mental note to check Jupiter for a concussion, Mercury finally found Uranus standing off at a distance watching Akane hurry over to a fallen Ranma. Making her way over to Uranus, she noticed that Akane and Ranma were setting themselves up on opposite sides of the demon. "Mercury, I don't believe what I'm seeing." "What do you mean?" "Those two.. they're moving faster than me, and they don't seem to be trying too hard to do it, either. And that energy blast Akane threw a minute ago.. it was at least as powerful at my World Shaking attack, and Akane thought nothing of tossing it. It seemed like Akane had gotten fed up at one point and was going to end it with a different technique, but Ranma stopped her before she finished announcing it. It makes me sort of nervous to think about what kind of technique is so powerful that he wouldn't want her to use it." "TSUIN.." Uranus and Mercury turned as though choreographed to face where the demon- and two.. blurs were. Mercury instantly had her visor down. "I don't believe it. They're running in a circle at nearly 40m/s, and they're getting faster!" "..HIRYUU.." Mercury was continuing to mumble about impossibilities when it hit Uranus like a freight train full of bricks. "A tornado! Amazing! They're actually going to try to make a torna- Oh god. They'll be able to run fast enough to do it, too!" Shouting, Uranus told everyone "GRAB SOMETHING NOW!" "..SHOUTEN.." Holding onto the base of a lamp post with one hand, and trying to keep her visor from being pulled off her face with the other, Mercury continued to watch them. "I just don't believe it.. they're running at nearly 65m/s no-" "..HA!" Anything else Mercury might have said was lost, as the air which would have conveyed her words was sucked up to launch the demon into the ki-charged air. * * * The Tsuin Hiryuu Shouten Ha was the most powerful thing they were allowing themselves to access at the moment. While they had access to enough ki to perform it for the rest of the day, if it didn't work the first time, repeating it wasn't likely to accomplish much more. They were plum out of things to do, without digging into the collection of secret or forbidden techniques they couldn't access without deciding to beforehand. Hence, it wasn't a good thing, when the demon landed - nowhere near as far away as it should've, and much sooner - and it wasn't moving. That didn't last very long, however. Propping itself up on some tentacles, it finally worked its way up to its hoof-feet, and sort of wobbled around. Speaking for the first time, it seemed to inquire, "you who are ?". Looking back and forth at each other, Akane and Ranma tried to puzzle out what it was asking. (After they picked themselves up from the face-fault that ensued the demon actually standing up) "Is it asking who we are?" "I think so.." Seeing the demon apparently nod in agreement, Ranma smiled. He was always happy to announce himself. "I am Ranma Saotome of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts!" Ranma quickly added, "and this is my wife, Akane Saotome!", after he felt her glaring daggers at him. While Ranma had received a number of different responses to his introduction, glee was rarely one of them. Gleeful demons look really weird, believe you me. They look simply unnerving, actually. This demon was most definitely gleeful upon receiving this news. "you saotome is ?" "Er, yeah, thats what I just said." Simply ecstatic at this point, the demon brought itself up to its full height. And it ran away. Ranma and Akane were simply too stunned to move, and the Senshi weren't about to chase after an enemy as powerful as that, even if they were in a condition to do so. * * * * * * * * Returning to her living room, Akane brought with her a tray stacked high with tea cups and various implements of proper tea serving. Before setting down the tray, she paused to survey the young girls and their male companion. The two older ones, Haruka and Michiru, were sitting together, looking very concerned. The man with his right arm in a used looking sling, was fussing over a bruised Usagi who was in turn fussing over his arm. The other three girls were sitting together, Makoto's head wrapped in bandages, Rei knees braced (she was sitting with her legs straight instead of bent underneath her, too). Only Ami had escaped any visible damage, but she was wishing for a chiropractor. Male companion? "Excuse me, Usagi, who is your friend?" Utterly distracted by fussing over the man's broken arm, Usagi didn't hear a word Akane said. The man did, however. "Ah, I'm sorry, I am Mamoru Chiba, I was the one in the tuxedo during the fight. Pleased to meet you." Since the object of her worries disappeared when Mamoru stood up, Usagi realized that she'd been asked a question. "Oh, Mrs Aino! Mamoru is my boyfriend! We're going to get married someday!" *He has to be at least 4 years older than her, and she is only 16. Well, I guess Ranma and I were only 16..* Akane turned and went back to serving tea after mumbling an appropriately polite response Once tea had been served, Ami pulled her computer out from the no-space in which it spent most of its time and set it on the table. While the demeanor of the meeting was very subdued compared to many which began with Usagi and Minako arguing over the merits of various boys or ice cream, Ami still had to cough to get everyone's attention. Assured of her audience's undivided attention, Ami began. "First, to reiterate some things we already know: What we fought was a demon. A 100% demon. Many of the things we've fought in the past were simply animate evil confined or bound to some sort of physical object. This thing normally resides in Hell until summoned. That is the key. Somebody is summoning these things to our world. It also means that its power is not being diluted by being channeled through a mundane object." After waiting a moment for this to sink in, Ami continued, not noticing that Ranma already looked bored. "Next, we barely managed to do anything to it. Nothing but our strongest magical attacks were able to even get its attention. Those only succeeded in damaging it when more than one struck it at the same time." Pausing to tap on her computer, she looked up when Ranma coughed. "Yes?" "I was wondering.. we were able to hurt it, right?" Without a word of response, Ami went back to typing, leaving Ranma hanging. Then, "Well. That was what I wanted to mention next." Pleased with himself, Ranma began to smile. "You weren't able to do much more than we were able to do." Ranma's smile disappeared. "However, you were able to do it in a tenth the time, and with 5 fewer people." Ranma's smile returned, but with a touch of uncertainty. "You should probably know.. we weren't using our full range of techniques. Some things are just way too dangerous to use without planning to ahead of time. We won't be making that mistake next time, though." Haruka began to gape, but held it in, instead deciding to ask a question. Instead, another voice behind Ranma spoke up. "Usagi, I hope you know what you're talking about!" Turning to see who had walked in now, Ranma found himself being eyed by a black cat with a crescent moon on its forehead. "Ack! Cat!" exclaimed Ranma, as he was on the other side of the room before the words registered in anyones' ears. Akane rubbed her temples as though a headache was developing. "Idiot, what are you doing? Its just a talking cat." "Oh. Right. Sorry. I was just testing you. Ha. Ha. Its not like I was surprised.." Giving Mr Saotome an inquisitive eye, Rei asked "Are you afraid of cats, Mr Saotome?" "Me? Afraid of cats! Ha!" Ranma gave off a fake laugh that lasted just a bit too long before sitting down. "Why would you think I was afraid of cats?" "Well, you did jump across the room when you saw one!" "Oh, that.. well, okay, maybe I used to be a little scared of cats. I got better though." "Just how afraid of cats were you before?" "Oh, not very." Having had enough, Akane thwapped Ranma on the head and decided to explain before he made any more of a fool out of himself. "Ranma was really scared of cats when he was younger. Something to do with being tossed in pits of cats as a child. When we were in England I was finally able to drag him off to a psychologist." Thinking for a second, Akane added "You know, its a an amazing coincidence that Minako showed up with Artemis on the same day that Ranma's shrink- er- psychologist told us that the last part of the treatment was to adopt a cat. A day earlier and we wouldn't have let her keep him." "Oh, hey, Mr Saotome. Thanks for not letting Mrs Saotome have me 'fixed'." Ranma turned around again and was faced with a white cat. Deciding that it would be a good time to take a nap, Ranma did. Real men don't faint after all. * * * Akane sighed and shook her head. *He may not lapse into the Neko-ken anymore, or run in screaming terror, but I'm not sure if this is much better..* "Well, I need to drag him off to bed. He'll be out for a little bit." Halfway bent over to pick him up, she stopped. "The doctors were telling us that they expect Minako to wake up very soon. Ranma and I will be going to spend the afternoon with Minako tomorrow. I think she'd like it if some of you were there when she woke up." All the girls nodded, but Ami and Usagi were particularly vigorous. "Wonderful, I'll give you a call before we go. Well, if you'll excuse me, I need to take care of sleepy head here." * * * Rei was annoyed. Sure, the Saotomes had told her that they were using ki to power their attacks, but something wasn't adding up. People just don't have that much kind of ki. And it didn't feel right, either. That was what was really eating her. As Mrs Saotome was curtly ushering her towards the door, Rei whipped around. "I'd like you to tell me where you're getting all of the ki you're using!" Akane looked like she was caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck named Rei. "Ah, well, nothing special. We've just, ah, built up bigger auras over the years from our martial arts training.. Come along now, can't have your parents worrying about you.." * * * * * * * * Ever the site of Senshi meetings, the Hikawa Shine was again in use for that purpose. All the girls were talking at once, posing questions, and providing speculation, but Haruka in particular was trying to get her question answered. "How were they able to create that tornado?" Having almost shouted her question, the other Senshi meekly quieted down and deferred to Ami, the only Senshi who could hope to provide any useful information. Ami, who'd actually been quiet until now, looked up from her computer. "That is a very good question. Normally a tornado is caused by hot and cold air meet, however Mr and Mrs Saotome were not heating up or cooling off the air, but instead letting off streams of some sort of energy that I cannot identify..." "That's ki" chimed Rei. "...and when the two energies met, they reacted like hot and cold air. That, and the high speeds at which they were running acted to cause the tornado." Makoto tried to contribute something next, "I've seen all of the Saotomes tournament fights, and the other night was the first time I'd ever seen them use a ki attack. They even stopped giving off battle aura a few years ago." "Hmm. There was an interview with a Mr Hibiki on the news a few years ago, I didn't pay much attention to it at the time because I had little interest in martial arts, but I seem to recall him telling the interviewer that Ranma used ki attacks when they were both teens living in Nerima." Count on Michiru to actually listen to and learn from the news. "But nobody actually believes that they were able to use ki that young!" cried Rei. "I use ki for my fire readings, but just tiny amounts of it. At the rate I'm going, I won't have as much ki as they used in a single blast until Crystal Tokyo is founded." "Maybe they learned some secret that you don't know?" added Usagi, unknowingly infuriating Rei. "Are you saying that a couple of martial artists from the outskirts of Tokyo learned some secret that no Shinto priest has ever figured out?" "You didn't know about using, uh, what was it? emotions for their blasting stuff, though." "I guess they could know something I don't..." quick to distract attention from that fact, Rei looked around for something else to mention. "Hey. Where has Setsuna been?" Michiru and Haruka looked at each other before Michiru answered, "Actually, we havn't seen her recently. She always seems to disappear at the worst times. We should have realized something bad was going to happen when she disappeared." "I hope she returns soon, it would be very helpful if we could ask her what is happening." added Ami, a touch of concern apparent in her voice. * * * * * * * * The demon which we last saw running away from Ranma and Akane at its top speed was now doing its best impression of kneeling in what appeared to be an alleyway. Some.. body? thing? was standing in the corner looking down on it. "Finally found them, did you?" "i found them did" "Yea! Well now that Cassia is done with you," began the shadowy figure, "you can go back to hell!" it finished quickly. Very pleased at being released from its servitude, the demon got up to leave. "..the quick way" announced the figure, quite happily. At that, the figure in the shadows held up a hand, and.. blasted?! the demon right out of existence. * * * * * * * * "Ranma!" Instinctively flinching, Ranma turned away from Tokyo's night skyline. His response of "Yeah?" was rather weary as he finished pulling off his shirt. "Your back! You've got a huge bruise on it!" "Hrm.. must've been when that demon was trying to grind me into the ground. Guess it was a bit stronger than I thought.." With anger at Ranma's ability to lie to himself rising in her voice, Akane snapped "Idiot, you know exactly how strong it was. You know you couldn't have taken much more of that!" Sitting down on the edge of their bed, Ranma began scratching the back of his head. "I dunno, I guess I'm just not used to being pummeled like that. Its been too long since I fought with anybody who could lay a hand on me, let along deal out that kinda damage.. Now Ryouga, I bet by now you could drop a mountain on 'im and he wouldn't notice.. Hey, thats it! Wasn't Ryouga telling us at the last tournament that he was looking for somebody he could fight who was strong enough to make him feel their attacks?" "Hmm, I think so.." "Maybe we should just use some more powerful techniques on the next one. No need to start sharing all the fun if we can help it." "Moron, I'll show you fun.." - - - - - - - - [1]: ``Rekka Hokan'' means ``Raging Fire Completion''. Give or take. Attack names seem cooler in Japanese, so that and proper nouns are about the only place where I plan on using Japanese. [2]: See the case study on Ranma at: http://web3002.servers.instant-web.co.uk/RanmaFAQ/arts/ranma.html He can manage 1000m/s at 16, but Akane never was as fast as Ranma. [3]: ``Mouko Takabisha'' translates to ``Fierce Tiger Domineering''. It is performed by placing ones hands together, palms out, at arms length, and then simply ``firing'' off a blast of ki fueled by sheer confidence. [4]: ``Fuhatsudan Kibou'' means ``Unexploded Bomb Ruse''.