Lines Of Destiny A Sailor Moon/Ranma 1/2 Crossover
By Louis-Philippe Giroux <dragon@anime.sobhrach.com>
Thank you for all your comments! Keep'em coming! C&C is always welcome!!!
Sailor Moon was created by Naoko Takeuchi and Ranma 1/2 by Rumiko Takahashi. Please don't sue me.
The latest versions of the previous chapters are always the ones on my WWW page at http://www.anime.sobhrach.com/~dragon/lines/lines.html
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Chapter 3
Ranma and Akane had gotten off the train and were looking for the exit. Akane noted with some amusement that the young man who had been sitting across them in the train was being hugged to death by a girl with uncannily long meatball-type ponytails. She frowned when her subconscious decided to replace the young man with Ranma and the girl with Shampoo.
She blinked. *Get a grip on yourself, Akane!* she berated herself. *Ranma's married to you now. There's nothing to fear from Shampoo.*
She was quickly brought back to her senses when a growling monster burst through a wall.
Ranma was getting off the train and he was still thinking about the article he'd read on the Sailor Senshi. According to the magazine, there had been a rash of monsters in this part of Tokyo, but the Senshi usually took care of them. What he couldn't figure out, though, was why his mind wouldn't let go of the Senshi's images. Why did they seem so familiar?
His internal musings were interrupted by a monster who made its presence known by smashing through a wall, sending people screaming for their lives. He stared blankly at the rampaging monster for about half a second before he took a ready stance.
"I thought I left that kind of crap in Nerima..." he muttered. He quickly pushed Akane towards a knot of girls to keep her out of danger.
Akane quickly found herself shoved towards a group of girls. She managed to slow down before could ram into a girl with long, loose blonde hair. Akane turned around to see Ranma approaching the monster.
"What's he doing?!" shouted the girl she'd almost collided with.
Akane let out a sigh. "The baka's probably going to fight it. As usual."
A little girl with mysteriously familiar purple eyes spoke up: "He... he can't possibly mean to fight a daimon alone, can he?"
No one answered as the girls looked on, completely forgetting to transform.
*God that thing is ugly,* thought Ranma absently. *Even Tarou's cursed form is better-looking.* The monster looked roughly like an insect, complete with a shell, clawed limbs and a collection of eyes of various sizes. The main difference was that it was standing on two thick legs and it was using its four other limbs to inflict damage. It also stood around seven feet tall.
Ranma was suddenly shaken out of "analysis mode" when the daimon suddenly grabbed someone by the throat with one its claws and lifted the person off the floor. At that moment, Ranma lost any regrets he might have had about hurting the creature. He was about to fire a Mouko Takabisha when fresh memories of the Forbidden Techniques floated to mind. *Let's see if I can get them right this time!* he thought. He quickly called out a Yama-sen-ken technique: "KIJIN RAISHUU DAN!" The vacuum Ki blade sliced through the limb that was holding the person up. The daimon roared in pain as the person dropped to the floor and scurried away. It turned to look at Ranma and charged him with two of its remaining claws. Ranma waited until the monster was within range and let out an ear- deafening kiai. The startled monster slowed just enough for Ranma to divert the incoming limbs to each side of him, while he himself stayed in the monster's path. "MOUKO KAIMON HA!" Ranma shouted, hitting the daimon in the face with a Ki-charged kick. The daimon's head snapped back with a loud crunching noise. It suddenly stood still.
Ranma thought the monster dead at this point and turned around to see if Akane was still alright. He saw her near a group of girls, but he also unfortunately saw Luna, which caused him to freeze. The monster, however, was _not_ dead and chose this particular moment to hit Ranma with all its remaining strength into a brick wall. It then decided it had had enough and tried to get away.
Akane had been watching Ranma fight and paled when she saw the monster throw Ranma into a wall. "I've got to help him!" was all she said.
Mamoru, Usagi, Minako, Ami, Hotaru and Luna all took a step back and could not help but stare in surprise when the girl pulled out a massive hammer out of nowhere and ran towards the monster. They were all so stunned that they never noticed the sigil of Earth flickering faintly on Mamoru's forehead for a few seconds.
Akane saw the wounded monster trying to get away and quickly intercepted it. "Not so fast," she hissed, her Ki-powered mallet at the ready. The monster, already gravely wounded from Ramna's assualt, tried to toss her out of the way. However, the attack not only missed by a wide margin, but was also countered with an upward swing from Akane which would have made a professional baseball player proud, sending it flying back towards Ranma.
If anything, his collision with the wall had quickly brought back Ranma to his senses. Digging himself out of the rubble he was about to start after it when he saw Akane punt it right back his way, courtesy of Mallet Airlines. He grinned and cupped his hands. "MOUKO TAKABISHA!" he cried, releasing a massive Ki-blast that struck the monster in mid-air, effectively stopping its course.
The monster's charred remains hit the floor, where they promptly turned to ash.
"Nice swing Akane," commented Ranma offhandedly while dusting himself off.
"It disappeared just like that?" wondered Akane out loud, before returning her mallet to hammerspace. "What _was_ that thing, anyway?"
Ranma pulled out the magazine he'd been reading in the train and gave it to Akane. "I read about it in the train. Apparently, monsters attack this part of Tokyo on a regular basis." He sighed, then chuckled: "And I thought we were done with this kind of stuff we moved out of Nerima."
Akane frowned. "I hope this doesn't happen too often. Who usually deals with those things anyway? The police?"
Ranma flipped the pages of the magazine and pointed to a blurry picture in which you could barely distinguish five young girls in rather skimpy outfits. "Apparently, they do. They call themselves the Sailor Senshi..."
While Akane and Ranma were discussing the topic further, Minako, Usagi, Ami and Mamoru were alternating between staring at Ranma and Akane and giving each other nervous looks. Hotaru, however, was watching them intently, as if she was trying to figure out a puzzle.
"What the heck just happened, Ami?" asked a bewildered Minako.
Ami soon found herself under close scrutiny when everyone turned towards her. "Why are you asking _me_? I know as much about this as you do!"
"Well, you _are_ usually the one who comes up with an answer," replied Usagi matter-of-factly.
Luna looked clearly stunned. Silently cursing the amount of people near them, she started scratching Usagi's socks to get her attention. Usagi looked down and quickly deduced from her guardian cat's face that she wanted to speak as soon as possible.
"They're leaving!" warned Mamoru.
In a rare moment of self-control, Usagi started to move towards the two. "Come on! We have to find out who they are!"
The two teenagers had left through the exit, with Usagi close on their heels. When Usagi went through the gate, however, she was met with an empty street. "Where did they go?" she wondered out loud.
Akane and Ranma finished their conversation when they noticed that the few people who hadn't left the station in fear were staring at them. Then the whispers began.
Ranma looked around him and decided it wouldn't be a good idea to stay here for long. He tugged Akane's sleeve. "Akane, I think we'd better bail out of here. I think we may have made too much of an impression already and what's worse, I think I saw a c-c-c... cat earlier. I don't want to stay here if there's one of _them_ around," he said nervously.
Akane frowned and gave Ranma an annoyed look. *Again with his stupid fear of cats!* Akane sighed. *I wish there was a way to cure him of that.* She then looked around and saw that people were starting to throw strange looks at them. She heard mutters of "youmas", "monsters" and "Sailor Senshi". She nodded to Ranma, and as soon as they made their way through the exit with their luggage, they jumped up and kept themselves to the rooftops.
As the girls were leaving the station, the questions started flying again. "All right, first things first," said an uncharacteristically serious Usagi. "Ami, what exactly _was_ that monster, anyway? We haven't had one of those for a long time, now."
"According to my computer, it was a daimon," answered Ami. "Probably a reject from a leftover daimon egg. I'm surprised that it lived this long without us detecting it."
"And now for the 100,000 yen question: What do you have on the guy who trashed it?" asked Minako.
"He's quite human, if that's what you want to know. I got a few readings on him since I inadvertently left my computer active when the daimon attacked."
"So let's hear it," said Luna in a hushed voice.
"Well, what you saw at the train station practically speaks for itself. First of all, he's incredibly fast and agile. His speed is on par with, or may even surpass our own in our Senshi forms. He must have a great tolerance to injuries, too, since being slammed in the wall merely stunned him for an instant."
"What about the energy ball he threw?" asked Usagi.
Ami sighed and started walking again. "The computer didn't have enough time to gather enough readings for that. I'm sorry, Usagi."
"The way he cut off the daimons's arms... Ugh! I don't _ever_ wanna get on his bad side," commented Minako, shivering slightly. "But I don't think we should forget what the girl did either. How many girls do you know pull out giant hammers out of nowhere and are strong enough to punt daimons around like baseballs?"
Usagi noticed Mamoru shaking his head.
"What's wrong, Mamo-chan?" she asked worriedly.
"They were in the train with me all this time; they were sitting straight in front of me and I didn't notice a single thing..." But Mamoru's voice had taken an uncertain tone by the end of the sentence.
"Out with it, Mamoru", said Minako, noticing it. "What is it?"
Mamoru looked thoughtful. "It's probably nothing, but the guy looked _very_ familiar for some reason. I can't help but wonder if I've seen him before somewhere."
Hotaru, who had been silent until now, suddenly became aware of the conversation. "You too, Mamoru-san?!"
Everyone stopped walking and looked at both of them. Mamoru and Hotaru were looking at each other.
"Where do you think you know him from?" asked Hotaru first.
"I've been having strange dreams for the past few days. It's in the days of the Moon Kingdom. I'm wearing my armor as Prince Endymion and this girl is running towards me, but I never quite clearly see her face; only shadows. When I saw that guy, I immediately started thinking about that girl." He passed a hand through his hair. "I don't really know why I should connect the both of them in the first place."
Hotaru looked at Mamoru with what seemed like pity in her eyes. "You don't remember her, do you?"
Mamoru felt a chill run through his spine. "Remember who?"
"I know who the guy reminds you of, Mamoru. Except for his hair color, he looks exactly like what your younger sister would've looked like had she been born a man."
Mamoru froze in shock. Sister?... He had a *sister*? Was the girl in his dream his sister?... "I had a sister?..." he said weakly. He turned to Luna. "Why was I never told I had a sister?!" he asked in a tone that was rapidly rising towards that of anger.
Luna found herself flinching under Mamoru's angry gaze. The worst thing was that for some reason, she now knew about Akana, something she knew she hadn't known even yesterday. It was quite disconcerting. How was she supposed to explain to Mamoru that she had just _now_ remembered about his sister?
Fortunately, Hotaru quickly came to Luna's rescue before the black cat had to explain herself. "Mamoru, there's no guarantee that she did know about Akana. Her and Artemis' memories are a bit swiss-cheesed, remember?"
Mamoru turned to her, his cold anger fading in the light of Hotaru's argument. "Then how is it _you_ know?" he asked.
"When I was reborn after the Pharaoh 90 incident, I grew up again extremely fast, but this time, I had most of my memories of the Moon Kingdom." Hotaru hesitated before continuing. "There's also the fact that I don't think your sister was reborn in this time like us, Mamoru." Seeing his questioning look, she went on: "Akana and I became the Sailors Terra and Saturn on the same day; we were the last Senshi to be nominated. Akana was supposed to be the strongest Senshi next to myself, but she mysteriously disappeared at roughly the same time Metallia attacked. I don't know what happened to her. If she _had_ been reincarnated, we would have met her already, I'm sure of it."
"How?" asked Mamoru intently. "How can you be sure we just haven't found her yet?"
"Because I was always supposed to be the last one to Awaken. The Senshi of Saturn only Awakens if all else fails. Sailor Terra would have Awakened before me, and if she _had_ Awakened, she would have been drawn to Usagi." Hotaru paused for an instant, then continued again. "As for me, I was sent to train far away in the system because everyone had become afraid of me, of what I meant. The fact that there was no Elder Saturn didn't make things any easier for my training. People were afraid of Saturn, the Bringer of Silence... They were all afraid, save Serenity, the Senshi and my brother." She gave a bitter smile. "The real irony of it all is that as it turns out, they sent me to train so far I couldn't come back in time to destroy Metallia when she launched her attack. The Silver Millennium passed away because it was afraid of the one who was supposed to be its protector."
Minako found her voice first, although Hotaru did not expect the question: "You had a brother?"
Hotaru looked sad for a moment. "I had several sisters, but, I only had one brother. His name was Kanma and he was one of the rare people who didn't flinch when speaking to me after I became Saturn. That's the other thing I find strange in all of this: if I didn't know any better, I would swear that the girl was my reincarnated brother."
"Why do you think she's your reincarnated brother?" asked Luna, curious.
Hotaru looked down to Luna with a small smile for an instant: "You probably wouldn't understand, but it has something to do with the way she handled that hammer of hers. Kanma was a smith, so he was always using hammers; he used to say pounding things made him relax. She looks so much like he did... but I gave up hope of my brother being reborn a long time ago," she finished with a sad look.
"How can you be so sure?" asked Usagi, who had not taken her hand away from Mamoru's shoulder since Hotaru's revelation. "My mother managed to send a lot of people to the future when she used the Ginzuishou to seal Metallia away. How can you be sure your brother wasn't one of them?"
Sad purple eyes looked up at the sky. "Back in the days of the Silver Millennium, every planet in the system had its own population. The planets were made viable thanks to the Ginzuishou. I was on my way back from out- system to report on the progress of my training when I felt a massive disruption in the magical fields that kept the planets viable. I rushed back to the Moon, fearing the worst, but I was too late. The Crystal Palace had been destroyed and Silver Millennium had been Silenced... without my help," she added bitterly. "After that, I immediately went to Saturn, to try and see if there were any survivors, but there were none. Everything had been destroyed. The worst part is that it looked like the destruction was old, compared to everywhere else. Metallia's troops had likely attacked Saturn before they attacked the Moon, in fear that they would have to fight me. By killing me first, no one would have been left to stop them, but it turns out they didn't even have to fight me. The Royal Palace was nothing but ashes; there wasn't a single soul left alive. My brother was a skilled mage, but he could never have survived long enough to be sent into the future."
Everyone was silent out of respect for a while, digesting the new information.
Further along the way, Ranma and Akane got back down from the rooftops after being sure nobody had followed them from the train station.
"I hope you're not planning on doing this on a regular basis, Ranma. I really don't appreciate all the attention," groused Akane.
"Kinda strange, though," Ranma replied over his shoulder. "In Nerima, Ryoga and I destroyed a lot of things each time we fought and no one ever looked twice."
"They did look twice," Akane replied. "They were just too afraid of doing anything about it."
Ranma raised an eyebrow, but let the matter drop. They soon arrived in front of a Shinto shrine.
"This is the place!" said Ranma. He looked at Akane, took her hand and went inside the gates.
End Chapter 3
Yama-sen-ken techniques from the manga (again, thanks Chris Rijk!):
Mouko Kaimon Ha [Fierce Tiger Crashing Through Gates]: Right after shouting "Don't move!" very loudly, Ryu strikes at Ranma, throwing both arms in a curving motion away from him (a bit like pushing through two doors) and kicks him at the same time.
Kijin Raishuu Dan [Demon God Assault Bomb]: Ryu practiced the move on a 5m high solid rock/metal Buddha, breaking it into large slices with thrown Ki- blades formed by pulling his hands away so fast that they form a vacuum. It was Ryu's favorite attack.
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