Charon & Sharing



Preface


    (For the unaware: the title is supposed to sound like "caring and sharing.")
    I wrote this story for the sake of the characters Setsuna and Chibi-Usa, mostly regarding how I've seen them depicted in Ranma 1/2 crossovers.
    The reason for Chibi-Usa is fairly simple: because of how often her character is either abused or underutilized. I imagine that the source of this contempt primarily stems from the anime. I don't see enough justification for it in the manga, and that's what I tend to subscribe to, so...
    Setsuna is just a great, big mess. After well over a decade of reading fan-fiction, I can't even think of a single example (offhand) where her character was able to meet my standards. To me, at least, it's like hardly anyone knows who she is, how to use her, or even how the Door of Time works.
    Finally, I felt that the only way to see a decent depiction of these two characters was to do it myself. Mind you, with people's perspectives and opinions being what they are, what I have here is by no means an example of how things should be. This is merely the realization of my own expectations, and is just as open to criticism as anything else.
    Then there's the time travel element. Rarely do I come across a story where its use doesn't cut whatever's suspending my disbelief. Since I was going to be working with Sailor Pluto anyway, I figured I'd take up the challenge myself and see if I fare any better.
    And Ranma? Well, he just naturally gravitated into the picture as various nebulous ideas began to coalesce. Originally there were going to be separate stories for Chibi-Usa and Setsuna, but their relationship eventually had me thinking of a story that featured both of them, and then Ranma waltzed in to tie everything together. However, even though he's at the center of the story's plot, he's really just a convenient gluing agent that I happened to have lying around. (Don't tell him that, though, 'kay?)


Prologue


    Ryoga collapsed, face-first, upon his bed. Then he rolled over onto his back, with his arms splayed out, and sighed. He stared up at the ceiling, though he didn't really see it. Instead, he focused his attention inwardly, lost in thought.
    His relationship with Akari was becoming strained. Which was no surprise, considering how his bad sense of direction kept them from meeting each other for long periods of time. How his parents had managed to stay together long enough to start a family was beyond him. Maybe their love for each other was just that strong, but... would it be worth it? Could he and Akari continue to love each other, knowing that they would spend most of their time apart?
    His eyes drifted away from the plain expanse above, to take in all of the souvenirs and knickknacks that filled his room from floor to ceiling. He knew that, with each addition, his relationship with Akari was getting worse. She had yet to get angry or complain, but she had become increasingly more subdued when they spent time together, feeling more regret for the time lost than happy for the time that they spent together.
    The solution was really quite simple: all he had to do was stay home. That way Akari would know where to find him, and they could spend time together. It sounded easy enough, but it was not without its sacrifices. Between being stuck in a house with nothing to do, and becoming restless due to being restricted to the same environment, he felt that he was going to go crazy before their relationship ever had the chance to take the next step.
    He closed his eyes, sighed and thought, "I don't know how much longer I can take this."
    When he heard the doorbell ring, he opened his eyes and sat up. As he got to his feet, he absently said, "I wonder who that could be..."
    It didn't take him long to reach the front door. His house was one of the few places that he could navigate without a problem, since it was both familiar to him and contained. Which was ironic because that same familiarity made sure that there wouldn't be any surprises around the next corner, so the boredom wasn't making him feel any better than how he did when he was lost.
    Upon opening the door, he squinted his eyes against the evening sun and saw what appeared to be a door-to-door saleswoman, with briefcase in hand. She was about his height, though she seemed taller because her hair — which was a cotton candy pink in color — had been put up into two, cone-shaped odango. She wore a slate-colored skirtsuit, matching heels and a white, button-up blouse — all of which did nothing to hide her beauty.
    It took him a while to reach her amaranth-colored eyes, much to his embarrassment, but he finally managed to ask, "C-can I help you...?"
    "Good evening," the saleswoman greeted him, with a radiant smile. "My name is Usagi, and I'm here to represent the Silver Millennium corporation. Might I borrow some of your time, so that I may showcase our latest product?"
    "Um, well, I'm not really interested," came Ryoga's awkward reply.
    "You won't even take a look before you decide?" Usagi asked with a pout, while looking at him with imploring eyes.
    Ryoga sighed with resignation. "I suppose it couldn't hurt to look..."
    "Thank you very much," Usagi cheerfully replied. One corner of her smile twitched, as she restrained the smirk that fought for its freedom.
    Raising her briefcase to the height of her chest, she held it up with one hand while the other released the clasps and opened it. She proceeded to present the product to him, so he could get a good look at it. What he saw left him unimpressed.
    "That's a key," he stated in a flat tone, as he pointed at said object. Sure, it looked fancy enough, in part because it hung from a necklace, but it simply didn't interest him.
    Undeterred, Usagi enthusiastically declared, "Ah, but it's not just any key!"
    Ryoga regarded her with a skeptical look. "It's not?"
    "Nope," Usagi chirped in response. "Whoever uses this key is guaranteed to get lost."
    The skeptical expression on Ryoga's face turned incredulous as he shouted, "Why in the world would I need something like that!?"
    "You don't need to use it," Usagi calmly pointed out, still smiling.
    It didn't take a genius to figure out what that meant, but — just to be sure — Ryoga asked, "You mean...?"
    Usagi nodded her head in confirmation. "That's right. You could trick someone else into using it."
    Ryoga now looked at the key with keen interest. He knew who he'd like to get lost, for all of the times that they had made fun of his bad sense of direction. With the key, he could make that person understand how he felt about it, and understand intimately. The idea made him giddy with excitement.
    Barely being able to contain himself, he gulped and — almost in a whisper — asked, "How long?"
    "Oh, just forever," came the nonchalant reply.
    That was just the icing on the cake, as far as Ryoga was concerned. He would have bought it even if the effect would have only lasted a day. Now, there was only one last thing to ask. "...How much?"
    "Since this is a promotional item," Usagi explained, her eyes glinting like those of a predator's, "it's only two-thousand yen."
    "I'll take it!" Ryoga immediately exclaimed, as he pulled out the required amount of money from his pocket and thrust it toward Usagi.
    She accepted the money with a smile and motioned for him to take the key. Once he had it in his possession, she proffered a slip of paper to him. "This will tell you how to activate it."
    Ryoga took it eagerly.
    "It was nice doing business with you," Usagi happily stated.
    Ryoga could only nod in reply, his mind elsewhere. He was eager to go and do what he planned to do with his new acquisition, so — being as spontaneous as he was — he was soon rushing past the person that had sold the key to him. A second later he turned a corner, and he was gone.
    Usagi, who still stood on the doorstep of Ryoga's house, with her back now facing a closed door, frowned. The frown remained after an eruption of smoke enveloped her form and cleared away a moment later, to reveal a younger version of the lady that she had once been. She appeared to be a young teenager (or was on the verge of becoming one), and now wore a sailor-styled school uniform. In her hands, in place of the briefcase, was a dark sphere with the face and ears of a cat, which had an antenna that rose up from between said ears.
    "So," Chibi-Usa thought bitterly, "even after nearly a thousand years, he didn't really change. At least I had an excuse..."
    She shook her head at the thought.
    "Either way," she continued, "I've set things in motion. It's risky, but..."
    She bit her bottom lip as she thought about the particulars of her plan. Not only was she risking someone's life (a life that she was trying to save), but she was also playing with time... And that held far greater consequences if things didn't work out just right. But, if things did work out...


Chapter 1


    Ryoga cursed to himself for what could have been the thousandth time. Akari wasn't going to be happy when they next met, since he had left on his own instead of waiting for her next visit. He should have waited and told her that he would need to leave the house for however long it would take him to do what he needed to get done, or — at the very least — left her a note that explained his absence.
    It had been much too late by the time that he had realized his mistake, of course. What's more, he had probably extended the time that he would be gone because he had tried to get back to his house during the first two days. In the end, though, he blamed Ranma for being such a temptation. If Ranma hadn't given him a reason to seek him out, he wouldn't have left the house. It had been his choice to leave, of course, but he wasn't going to let little details like that get in the way of his rationalizations.
    After taking a look at his surroundings, he couldn't determine where he was. The street looked like a lot of other streets, and he didn't see any familiar landmarks. He could have been in Sapporo, for all that he knew. In the end, the only thing that he could do was keep on moving, until he found Ranma. He'd find him, eventually, but there was no telling for certain when that would be.
    "Oh, Ryoga," a familiar voice squealed in delight, as he was embraced from behind. "I thought I'd never see you again!"
    His body stiffed, due to the intimate contact. With his face a mask of surprise, Ryoga exclaimed, "Akari!?"
    "I've decided," he heard her say, her voice husky with desire. "I want you to pork me!"
    More out of reflex than not, he sputtered, "P-p-p-p-p-pork!?"
    He felt shock, excitement, confusion, embarrassment, dread, elation, and a host of other emotions upon hearing her declaration. His head felt like it was on fire and ready to explode, as his eyes all but shot out of his head. His gut flipped one way and flopped another, and even seemed to zig and zag in disconcerting ways. It took everything that he had to regain some sense of control, so he could respond properly.
    Whirling around, he grasped her by the shoulders, held her at arm's length, and said, "B-but, we can't—!"
    He froze, in mortification, when he realized that the girl before him — that he had thought to be Akari — looked nothing like his girlfriend. He knew only one person who had those mocking, blue eyes, that mischievous grin, and had their red hair done up in a pigtail.
    Her eyes shining with mirth, Ranma giggled and said, "Well, if you don't want to, then that's perfectly okay with me."
    An instant later her head was smashed into the pavement, with a force that cratered the sidewalk. Ryoga held up the fist that had struck her, it and his body shaking with rage. Clenching his teeth, he turned away and restrained himself, knowing that death was too good for what he had planned for her.
    After Ranma picked herself up and dusted herself off, she looked at Ryoga reproachfully and groused, "Can't you take a joke? Sheesh."
    Ryoga turned back around and glared at her, but he held his tongue. Now that he had found his quarry, he had to focus on what he had intended to do. He'd had plenty of time to come up with a plan while he had been lost, and now it was time to initiate it.
    Acting smug, he snorted disdainfully and said, "Anyway, while you were apparently off training to become a tramp," he took delight in her expression of resentment, "I might have found a way to rid myself of the pig."
    Ranma's brow perked up with interest. "You did?"
    In answer, Ryoga took out the key and held it up. "With this, I—"
    Before he could finish what he wanted to say, Ranma had snatched the key out of his hand.
    "Hey!" He yelled at her.
    While he was putting on an act, his response hadn't been faked. It really did annoy him whenever she just took something out of his hand, or when she did a host of other things whenever he wasn't doing exactly what she wanted. She was always trying to take advantage of him, as far as he was concerned.
    Ranma looked at what she had in her hand with a look of confusion on her face. "A key?"
    "What else does it look like?" Ryoga snidely quipped, which earned him a glare from the redhead.
    "Of course, it's not just any key," he went on to say, ignoring the reaction from his previous remark. "If you know how to use it, like I do, then it will take you to where you can turn back time on your body, to a point before it had been cursed."
    Ryoga managed to hide how proud he was of his story. It had taken him several days to come up with a plausible one, that sounded palatable enough to the ear. Originally, his idea had been based on actual time travel, but he had eventually reasoned that it'd be easier to accept a younger body: because trying to understand time travel had frustrated him, and he didn't want to leave himself out to dry if any particular questions came up about it.
    Ranma was behind him in an instant, with her hands massaging his shoulders and a sweet smile on her face. "We're friends, right? You'll tell me how to use it, won't you?"
    Anticipating his response to her actions, she ducked under a swipe that would have knocked her upside the head, before leaping back so she could put some distance between them. She proceeded to pout cutely instead of frown, as a remnant of her act, since she had expected that reaction from him; and that was why she was surprised by what he did next.
    He seemed to consider her for a moment before he sighed and said, "Fine," as he procured a slip of paper from his person and held it out to her.
    "Huh?" Came her intelligent response.
    "Just take it," he growled, as he repeated his gesture. "You're just going to keep hounding me about it, right? I need to get back to Akari, so I don't have time for your shenanigans."
    The sad part about his explanation was that there was a bitter truth to it. Leaving when he had, without contacting Akari, had set back his efforts to improve their relationship. If things turned out as he hoped, though, he figured that his little excursion would be worth it in the end.
    As Ranma accepted the slip of paper from him, she — with most of her attention on her acquisition — idly commented, "You two are really serious, huh?"
    Ryoga grunted his affirmation. Akari was a kind, understanding and patient girl, and all in spite of his bad sense of direction, the misunderstandings they'd had, and knowing about his curse. However, while he was no longer actively pursuing Akane, his feelings for her had yet to diminish by any significant margin. The former had mostly been due to the amount of times that Akane had referred to him as being nothing more than a friend, rather than due to any real effort on Akari's part, while the latter was simply caused by having an obsession with one's first love interest (despite it being unrequited).
    After reading the instructions on the paper, Ranma glanced at Ryoga with a critical eye. "You don't look any younger, to me."
    "That's because I haven't tried it, yet," Ryoga explained, with a shrug of his shoulders. "I don't exactly know what to expect, and I don't want to risk jeopardizing what I already have with Akari. I mean, I don't like becoming a pig, of course, but maybe I could learn to live with it if I'm with her."
    Then, he grinned and added, "Of course, if you were to try it first, I'd know — for sure — whether to use it or not."
    Ranma rolled her eyes in response to that. "Why am I not surprised?"
    "Still," she thought, as she stared down at the key that she held in her hand, "maybe it's worth the chance. Being a girl isn't so bad (it sure beats being an animal), but how little control I have over it has always been a pain; literally, more often than not. It'd be so much easier if I were just a man, again. And, maybe, Akane..."
    The thought that Akane might not think of her as being as much of a pervert as she does now, which had always been a wedge in their relationship, made up her mind. At the very least it would decrease the amount of situations that would embarrass her fiancée, and she would no longer have a body that (she reasoned) made her feel inadequate and jealous.
    Finally, with a determined look on her face, she said, "I'll give it a try."
    "Are you sure?" Ryoga asked, who managed to hide most of his excitement behind what sounded like concern.
    Ranma nodded her head resolutely. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained."
    And she knew, too, that she would have either been stuck as a girl, or dead, if she had ever rolled over in the face of an uncertain future. She was a doer, not a do-nothing. And, with her luck, expecting a cure to just fall into her lap was delusional at best.
    Following the instructions on the paper, she raised the key into the air and read aloud, "Guardian of Time! Let the Door of Time split the heavens and open to me! I call you by your true name: the all-knowing God of Time, the Father of the Guardian, Chronos! Lead me! Protect me! Send me the path of light!"
    Suddenly, unexpectedly, a great burst of light erupted into existence directly above her, with a mighty roar. Both she and Ryoga squinted their eyes and shielded themselves against the light with their arms. However, as much as the latter tried, he couldn't see the former, who had been swallowed up by what appeared to be a pillar of light.
    Soon enough, Ranma felt herself being lifted into the air by an invisible force, despite her cries of protest, until she reached the source of the light. When she did, the light suddenly disappeared, and a heavy silence hung in the air. Ryoga lowered his guard and looked around, but he didn't see any sign of the redhead that had been standing just a few, short feet away from him only a moment ago.
    With his heart beating excitedly in his chest, he tentatively called out for her. "Ranma?"
    When he was answered by silence, as well as by an errant leaf that had been blown across his field of vision, he could no longer hold his feelings in check. With a triumphant cry of, "Yes," and, "I did it, I did it, I did it," he ran down the street while waving his arms about excitedly; which, of course, resulted in the demolition of a long stretch of wall. He didn't even notice when his exultant cries became happy, little squeals and grunts, when someone using a garden hose had turned to see what the disturbance behind them was all about.
    "Let's see how you like it when you get lost, Ranma," the little piglet crowed to himself in delight.


Chapter 2


    Ranma found herself smothered in darkness. She couldn't see anything in any direction, and she couldn't even see her hand when she held it in front of her face. If not for the firm support beneath her feet, the dull roar that seemed to come from all around her, and the accompanying breeze, she wouldn't have known if she had been anywhere at all.
    She hadn't known what to expect after such a light show, but certainly not what she was currently experiencing. For a moment, she thought that she may have been blinded, but — rather than jump to that sort of conclusion — she thought better of it and decided to explore her other options. To start with, she tried to pierce the darkness without her eyes, to sense what might lay beyond her.
    When she felt the presence of something off in the distance, she breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't know who or what it was, but she felt that it would be better to find out rather than to stand around, doing nothing. The sooner that she found a way to get back to where she had come from, the better. As much as she wanted to get rid of her curse, she didn't like the idea of being unable to find her way back from... wherever she now found herself.
    After she pocketed the key and the slip of paper that she had read from, she slowly made her way toward what her senses had picked up. After a moment, she noticed that the darkness was beginning to thin, as if it were material. At the same time, what had started as a dull roar had become quieter, more like a background noise, and the air felt like it had lost some of its vitality.
    It wasn't long before the darkness began to give way to an illuminated space surrounded by mist. Here, it was quiet — too quiet — and deathly still despite the roiling mist along the ground. Ahead of her, a shape soon resolved itself, until she recognized it as an ornate doorway that stood without a wall. She had never seen its like before, though she guessed that its appearance would have been appropriate for a palace, or some other fancy place where the wealthy and powerful ofttimes lived.
    Just as she had begun to wonder where the light source could be, she had to stop in her tracks — both mentally and physically — when she heard someone shout, "Halt!"
    Before the doorway, a new figure appeared. Just how they hadn't appeared prior to the doorway, she didn't know; what she did know, however, was that she recognized them as the presence that her senses had picked up. Said presence was a dusky-skinned woman, who had long, green hair and eyes that were as red as rubies. She wore an outfit reminiscent of a figure skater's, consisting of a white leotard that left nothing of her shape to the imagination; and, from it, a short, black, sunburst-pleated skirt draped over her hips. At her chest, and the small of her back, were burgundy-colored bows: the former bearing a red jewel at its center, and the latter's tails trailing down to her knees. Strangely enough, the neckline of the leotard had a sailor-styled collar, which was as black as the skirt. To top it all off, she wore white gloves that were cut before the elbow and trimmed in black, knee-high, black boots topped by a band of white, a golden tiara that had a red gem set in its center, and a chain that adorned her waist, cocked on one hip, where several, familiar-looking keys dangled.
    Ranma would have taken the time to admire the woman's beauty, if not for the dead-serious expression on her face and guarded stance. As it was, she was more concerned by what she held in her hands, and how she held it. It was a staff nearly as long as its wielder was tall, and it gave her the impression of it being a giant key. Which would make enough sense, taking into consideration the doorway that she appeared to be guarding. And if it were — indeed — a giant key, then it was topped by what could only be identified as being a heart-shaped bow, hollow save for the red crystal orb that dwelt within it.
    Whether or not it was a staff or a giant key, however, didn't really matter to her: by the way she had it raised at an angle, in front of her torso, she was sure that it was going to be used as a weapon. She wasn't all that surprised, though, if she understood both Ryoga and the words that she had spoken earlier in order to activate the key. The woman before her had to be the Guardian of Time, and behind her had to be the Door of Time. She figured that the cure to her curse lay beyond the doorway, and that she had to overcome the guardian to get it. Her conclusion sounded reasonable enough, and — as far as the impending battle was concerned — it was right up her alley.
    "I am the Guardian of Time," the woman proclaimed, which confirmed her identity. "Sailor Pluto!"
    "You don't look much like a sailor, to me," Ranma couldn't stop herself from quipping, as she regarded the Guardian of Time with a skeptical look.
    In response, the so-called Sailor Pluto narrowed her eyes and declared, "Those who break the taboo... must die!"
    She leveled the head of her Garnet Rod at the redheaded intruder, and the Garnet Orb began to glow. Pink-colored bands of energy quickly began to gather at the end of it, which coalesced into a sphere that was surrounded by a faint ring of crimson.
    "Dead scream!" She shouted, as she sent her attack toward its target.
    Ranma leapt to the side to avoid it; just barely, since she had not anticipated the speed at which it would travel. Of course, now that she knew what to expect, she would be better prepared for it.
    Still, since she didn't know the exact reason for being attacked, she asked, "What taboo?"
    Instead of replying to her question, Pluto launched another "dead scream" at her. After she had recovered from dodging it, she had to avoid another one, followed by yet another. The Guardian of Time kept them coming, and she could do no more than dodge, making little progress to close the distance between them.
    Then, when Pluto realized that she was wasn't getting anywhere, she decided to use another attack. The Garnet Rod faded away, as she dismissed it, but the Garnet Orb remained. She cupped her hands a short distance beneath it, and held it aloft with the energy field that it exuded.
    She yelled, "chronos typhoon," and a wide, cylindrical-shaped column of swirling, hot pink-colored streamers of energy raced toward its target.
    Ranma managed to evade it, but — much like the first "dead scream" — only just. This time, while the attack had traveled a bit slower than the ones that had preceded it, the vortex of energy had been three to four times wider, and at least twice as tall as that. The real problem had been the suction of the vortex, which had been powerful enough to pull her right back to where she had moved away from. She was glad that the attack had never lost any of its momentum, and had continued on its path until lost to the darkness behind her: because, had she or it moved any slower, she would have been sucked in; and she didn't want to find out what would happen if that were ever to occur.
    She knew that she had to end this confrontation soon, since her opponent was obviously fighting to the death. Of course, despite that, she had no intention to fight in kind. Her first order of business was to make the battle more up close and personal, since that was where she excelled. If she could disarm the guardian of her weapon, perhaps that would forestall an escalation to blows. While she wasn't against striking the fairer sex, it didn't sit well with her, as she preferred to reserve that option for when she thought it was necessary. Unless she was properly provoked, of course: her tolerance only went so far, after all.
    Since she needed to take the initiative, she knew that it would require the use of a long-ranged technique. Fortunately, she was in the right frame of mind to use it, since a cure for her curse was at stake. Not that it was necessary to have that much incentive to use it, but it certainly made it easier to do.
    Just as her opponent was preparing for another attack, she quickly thrust the palms of her hands forward and shouted, "Mōko takabisha!"
    While the green-haired guardian had little trouble dodging her attack, it had still worked as intended: her attack had been interrupted, and the recovery time that had followed her evasive maneuver had given her the opportunity that she needed to close the distance between them. It had only taken her a second, but it had only taken her opponent that long to recover, too.
    Once she had reached her, she had met with her staff, which had been summoned back into existence. Its offensive range made it so she couldn't attack her without being deep within its strike zone, but that was okay with her since she hadn't planned on doing so. What mattered was that she wasn't going to use any of her long-ranged attacks, now that they were so close, lest she compromise her ability to defend herself.
    She took a moment to gauge her skill, and — while her attacks with the staff were rather basic — they were far from inexperienced. On one hand, that disappointed her; on the other hand, she was glad that her goal may be that much easier to attain. Either way, her mind focused on the latter, and decided to get down to business.
    When the guardian's weapon was next thrust, she turned her torso aside, kept her eyes trained on it as it passed by her nose from only a width of a hair away, then seized it. She proceeded to twist her torso around with great force while pulling the weapon away from its owner, which resulted in a swing that sent the so-called sailor, well... sailing.
    Her opponent recovered gracefully and landed on her feet, but — when she turned herself around — she didn't look very happy about what had happened. Which wasn't all that surprising, what with being disarmed her and all.
    With the guardian's weapon securely in her possession, she asked, "May I pass, now? I'd like to get back home before dinner."
    In response, Pluto frowned. She felt that there was something odd going on, regarding both the request and the fight. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but she didn't see why it should be a concern: because she could still fight. In fact, she now had an opportunity to take advantage of.
    With the redhead eyeing her warily, Pluto began to walk toward her. Once she was two of her own arm-lengths away, she stopped. Then, she raised her hand... and her opponent found — to her surprise — that her hands were empty. What had once been in her grasp had reappeared in her own, and its bow was now aimed at the other girl's chest and charging up for an attack.
    Ranma managed a small, "Eep," as she bent over backwards to avoid being hit, to the extent that her palms were now planted on the ground. The "dead scream" flew overhead a split second later, a bit too close for comfort. Had it not been for the significant difference in height between them, she might not have come out of the surprise attack unscathed.
    "So much for that idea," she thought, as she pushed herself back to an upright position. With her first plan a bust, she had to fall back on her second plan.
    Thus the fight was rejoined, though she didn't notice any improved difference in her opponent's attacks. However, before long, said opponent had changed her tactics. She began to leap away from her, and she had to race after her so there wouldn't be enough distance between them for her to use her long-ranged attacks upon landing. When she tried the same maneuver a third time, however, she fired off a "dead scream" from the air instead of the ground, but she managed to dodge it despite being unprepared for it.
    She knew that she couldn't tarry any longer, lest she risk being hit by one of her opponent's long-ranged attacks. While she figured that she could survive being hit by one of them, she didn't think that she would be in any condition to dodge a follow-up; and she had an idea of what would happen to her in that scenario, since the guardian seemed to take her job seriously.
    When she managed to move in behind her, and saw the backhanded swing coming, she also saw an appealing opening for what she intended to do. As she ducked, and the staff passed overhead, she extended her leg out and swept the guardian off of her feet. Rather than catch her by the heel, however, she had caught her by the shin and made her fall forward. She followed that up with a short yet quick leap, from her squat position, and landed on her backside. The addition of her weight foiled the guardian's attempt to recover from her fall, and she ended up falling face-first onto the ground. Then, from where she sat, she took her arms by the wrists and pulled them back until her chest was no longer in contact with the ground. With that done, she briefly applied more pressure to one of the wrists, whose hand still grasped the weapon, until she dropped it.
    With a smidgen of smugness in her voice, she looked down upon the guardian with a smile and asked, "Do you give up now?"
    Initially, Pluto had struggled, but she had given up when she couldn't gain enough leverage to escape. Fortunately, while her position was certainly uncomfortable, it was not painful. Which she found to be odd, because — despite her lethal intent — the redhead had opted to pin her down rather than respond in kind. Understandably, she was more accustomed to fighting those who wanted her to suffer, or to die, so she didn't know what to think about the girl's lack of hostility.
    Still, she had a duty to perform: regardless of one's character, be they good or bad, she had to protect the integrity — as well as the knowledge — of the Door of Time. There was a shortlist of exceptions, of course, but the girl on top of her was not on it.
    So, in answer to the redhead's question, she obstinately grunted out, "Not yet."
    Suddenly, Ranma felt a field of energy surround them, and she could even see how it faintly glowed with a soft light. Then, much to her surprise, both the guardian and her weapon vanished. Immediately afterward, she sensed danger coming from behind, and she knew that could only mean one thing.
    Time seemed to slow down for them, in that decisive moment. As Ranma began to leap away, twist around and raise her arms into a defensive position all at the same time, Pluto's "dead scream" was already halfway charged. Ranma noticed the status of her attack, from over her shoulder, and her eyes began to widen. Pluto's eyes, which had been narrowed, began to widen at the same time, when — through the haze of energy that was gathering at the end of her Garnet Rod — she saw a symbol flare into existence on the other girl's forehead. The symbol was of an uppercase "C," with the lower part connected to the middle of an uppercase "H."
    It was the symbol for Pluto's moon, Charon.
    Fortunately, despite what little time Pluto had to redirect her attack, she managed to lift the end of her Garnet Rod high enough so her "dead scream" was fired above the original target's head. The act of doing so had an effect on said target, whose leap had lost much of its energy before her feet had left the ground, turning it into a stumble which eventually landed the girl on her rear.
    They silently regarded each other, with Ranma confused and Pluto dumbstruck. While the former wondered why her life had been spared, when it had seemed forfeit before, the latter couldn't believe what had happened, and how it had happened, as she recalled a memory from the distant past.
    She had just been told of her new duty as the Guardian of Time, and of the taboos that were not to be broken by anyone, by the late Queen Serenity. At the time, as young as she was, it had sounded like such a daunting task. The queen must have seen the apprehension in her eyes, the uncertainty, because of her parting gesture.
    "Here; take this," she had said, as she held out a heart-shaped crystal. "Hold on to it."
    She had accepted the object reverently, not knowing what it was. Her curiosity had gotten the better of her, and she had looked up at the queen with an expression that seemed universal to children who were filled with wonder.
    "One day," the queen had answered her imploring eyes, with a sympathetic smile, "you may find someone special to give that to; someone who can share your burden. I can not tell you if or when that will happen, but — for your sake — I will pray that it will."
    She had prayed for it, too; for a time, at least. Whenever she had felt particularly lonely, she had looked forward to meeting the person that would stand beside her, in front of the Door of Time. After a while, however, she had begun to doubt that it would ever happen. Eventually, she had stopped thinking about it entirely, once she had gotten used to the silence — to being alone.
    A strange yet familiar feeling was welling up inside of her, as she gazed at the fading mark that was on the redhead's brow. Old memories surfaced, from a time when she wasn't so self-assured, and hadn't become desensitized to the loneliness that pervaded the fourth dimension. It was a pang that urged her to take out Charon's sailor crystal and give it to its rightful owner.
    She was brought back to the present when she heard the redhead heave a heavy sigh. She still sat on the ground, a few meters away, though her legs were now crossed. Her head was bowed, and her shoulders were slumped — the posture, she knew, had no doubt accompanied the sigh.
    "I don't really get it," Ranma spoke up sullenly, as she raised her blue eyes to meet the red ones across the way, "but you beat me, so..."
    Pluto shook her head ever-so-slightly and frowned, as she considered her next course of action. Her priority was to attend to her duty, first, then ask questions later. Usually there wasn't anyone — or anything — to question later, so it wasn't an option that she exercised all that often. However, it was now later, she had questions, and she had someone who might be able to answer them. By all rights, she should have killed the other girl, be she a senshi or not, but something didn't add up. At the very least she had to find out how she had entered the fourth dimension, and if anyone had put her up to it. The girl was a great fighter (especially for a human), but she didn't seem like the type who typically tried to use the Door of Time, since she had shown as much restraint as she could during their fight despite knowing that her own life had been in peril. All in all, it raised too many questions... as well as too many reasons to let her live.
    She slowly approached the redhead, who regarded her warily. Once she reached her, she extended her hand and gestured for the girl to take it. The redhead spared a glance between her face and her hand before she took it.
    Once she had helped the girl to her feet, she got right to the point and said, "I'd like to ask you some questions."
    "Okay," Ranma responded slowly, not knowing what else to say, or what to expect.
    "First," Pluto began, "I'd like to know why you're here."
    That seemed like a reasonable question, so Ranma shrugged her shoulders and said, "I just wanted to cure my curse."
    Pluto quirked one of her eyebrows in response. "Curse?"
    "Yeah," Ranma reluctantly replied, as she scratched the side of her face and looked away. "My, um, appearance changes depending on the temperature of the water that I'm exposed to."
    While the senshi of Pluto knew that the answer had been made vague on purpose, her priorities compelled her to ask, "And that's why you wanted to travel through time? So you could prevent your past self from getting cursed?"
    Ranma cast her eyes back toward Pluto and blinked them confusedly. "But I was told that I could turn back the time on my body, to a time prior to it being cursed."
    "Told?" Pluto repeated, her expression hardening. "By who?"
    "Er," Ranma voiced hesitantly, feeling uncomfortable under her hard stare, as well as embarrassment from the only answer that she could give to her. "A friend... sort of?"
    Seeing that the guardian was not amused, she avoided eye contact and admitted, "Well, he can be a jerk," before she looked back with a bit of defiance and said, "but he's also an idiot. What he told me was probably told to him by someone else."
    She didn't like defending Ryoga, but the woman in front of her took her business seriously and she didn't want her to hunt him down and kill him. Fortunately, if the softened look on her face was any indication, it seemed like she had understood the nature of her response.
    Pluto considered the next best thing to inquire about before she asked, "Alright, then can you tell me how you got here?"
    Relieved that the line of questioning had changed, Ranma procured two particular items from her pocket. "I used this key, using these instructions."
    Pluto schooled her features as she took the key and the slip of paper that bore the instructions on how to use it. She didn't want to believe it, as she regarded what she now had in her possession, but she began to draw some conclusions about what had happened: because she knew who she had last given the key to, and she could also recognize the handwriting of the person who had written the instructions.
    Ranma looked down as the guardian lowered the key to her waist and attached it to the chain that was there, alongside other, similar-looking keys. When she looked back up, she saw that she had turned her head away to look into the distance, as if there was something beyond the cloak of darkness that surrounded them. Something between worry and anger seemed to peek out from her stony visage.
    "Um," she began awkwardly, "I don't know what's going on, but do you think you could get me back to where I came from? I don't even know where this place is..."
    Pluto turned to regard her with something akin to an apologetic expression. "Only if you don't mind taking a little detour."
    Ranma shrugged her shoulders noncommittally. "I don't really have anything else better to do with my time..."
    Smiling a bit in amusement, Pluto held out the slip of paper to her. "Please hold on to this, for now."
    Ramna nodded her head and stuffed the instructions back into her pants pocket. Then, she watched as the guardian's face became serious again, as she raised her staff. The red orb atop it shone brightly, seeming to bathe her whole world in white, and then...
    When she felt that the world around her had returned, Ranma opened her eyes and took in her surroundings. She found herself in a bedroom, one that was so spartan that it had the bare minimum of furnishings required for being such a place. She supposed that it was just as well, since their mode of transportation seemed to stir the air violently enough to kick up gale-force winds. And if it was the guardian's bedroom, then it made enough sense to leave out the little things that brought out the character of a bedroom, so they wouldn't be tossed about and damaged.
    Her curiosity getting the better of her, she asked, "Where's this?"
    Appearing to be distracted by her thoughts, the guardian — without turning to regard her — belatedly replied, "This is my room."
    Then she shook her head and gave her undivided attention to her, smiling wanly. "I spend a lot of time at my post, so I haven't done much with it."
    Ranma nodded her head in reply, as she considered the implications of her response. It sounded like she spent so much time guarding the Door of Time that she didn't have enough of a life to make her bedroom look like it was more than just a guest room. Even the room that her family shared, at the Tendo's house, had some of their personal effects in the room — and they were guests.
    "I hope you don't mind," Pluto went on, sounding a mite apologetic, "but I'll need you to wait here for a bit. I'll try not to take too long."
    Ranma folded her arms behind her head, and crossed her feet at the ankles. "I can wait."
    Pluto simply nodded her head in response to that, and did no more than that before she left.
    It seemed, to Ranma, that the green-haired guardian wanted to get right down to business. As soon as the door had closed behind her, Ranma noticed a flash of light come from the other side of it, that had shown through the cracks around the door. She didn't know what to make of it, but figured that she had nothing to worry about. After all, if the guardian had ever intended to do anything bad to her, she would have done it back when she had been a sitting duck.
    Which made her wonder why the guardian had changed her mind so abruptly, when she had been at her mercy. Whatever it had been, she had been acting a bit funny ever since, as if she wasn't quite sure how to deal with her. She thought that, perhaps, she wasn't the cold-blooded killer that she had first pegged her as being, during their exchange. However, that still didn't explain her surprise, as if she had seen something... But what had she seen?
    With a sigh, she moved over to the bed and sat down on it, since all that she could do was wait. Perhaps, if the circumstances were permitting, she would be able to find out what had happened back at that misty place, at some point; and with everything else, for that matter. Why Ryoga would want her to go to such a place, for instance, was beyond her. Plus, he wasn't the sort of person that would send her to die at someone else's hands.
    The only thing that she was sure about, was that Ryoga was going to get it regardless of what he had tried to accomplish.


Chapter 3


    Meiou Setsuna, after reverting to her civilian form, now wore a midi-length dress made of silk. It was black above the waist, where the color transitioned to a dark green at the hem of the skirt. The spaghetti straps exposed her lovely shoulders, and the scooped neckline displayed an ample amount of cleavage. On her feet were strappy, low-heeled shoes; showy, but reasonably practical.
    She spared a glance at the door behind her, beyond which the redhead waited, before she began her journey to the phone that was downstairs. The princess of the thirtieth century was still in the past, she knew, and she wanted to call the Tsukino residence to see if she could find her there or not.
    As she descended down the staircase, she could hear voices coming from the living room. By the time she reached the landing, she had discerned the identity of the three speakers that she had heard, and suspected a fourth that had yet to say anything. More importantly, to her relief, was the fact that one of the voices belonged to her quarry, which would save her the time that it might have taken to locate her otherwise.
    She entered the living room, from the hallway, and stood just within the room to take in the scene. In the armchair sat Michiru, who was in the middle of lifting a tea cup from a saucer and taking a sip from it. Behind her was Haruka, who leaned on the back of the armchair with her forearms. On the couch sat Chibi-Usa and Hotaru, with the latter currently talking about school in an animated fashion; in particular, about the friends that she had made there.
    Setsuna knew that the princess didn't go to school, and was instead tutored in the palace, so it made sense when she heard Hotaru's wish for her to be able to attend — especially now that they were both the same apparent age. Unfortunately, the princess had no business to be in the past, now that her training as a sailor senshi had been completed. The only reason for her being in the past, this time, had been due to the order of Neo Queen Serenity herself. No reason had been given, and she hadn't raised any questions, but she didn't think that it had been for the cause of her current concern. She certainly hoped that wasn't the case, at least.
    Since the armchair was facing the entrance to the room, from the hallway, Haruka and Michiru were the first to notice her presence. They were alarmed by her sudden, unexpected appearance, but they quickly regained their composure. Their reaction drew the scrutiny of Hotaru toward them, who turned to look at what had caught their attention. This, in turn, had brought Chibi-Usa's attention to her.
    Hotaru, who now had a bright smile on her face, cheerfully exclaimed, "Setsuna-mama!"
    "So," Haruka lightly drawled, with an easy grin on her face, "you found the time to take a break, did you?"
    With a sigh, Setsuna said, "Unfortunately, I'm here on business."
    With the notable exception of Chibi-Usa, everyone's faces clouded over with disappointment upon hearing those words. While it was true that their mission had changed, and they didn't have to stand at their posts at all times, Setsuna considered herself the exception. While Haruka, Michiru and Hotaru could essentially keep their vigil on the solar system from Earth, she could not do the same for the Door of Time, which was in the fourth dimension. Not only could she not do that, but failing to guard it properly was an immediate risk to the stability of the universe itself, rather than just one solar system in a galaxy among countless other galaxies.
    In reality, guarding the Door of Time was important enough to enlist the aid of every sailor senshi in the solar system, at the very least. The late Queen Serenity, however, couldn't stand the thought of depriving every sailor senshi of some form of life, and had thus spared all but one from undertaking such a task: that being herself. Like Michiru and Haruka, the queen hadn't intended for her to be alone, but — for some reason — her partner had never been found... until now.
    No one, save for the future queen and princess, truly understood how important her duty was. And she — like them — was not about to make anyone else any wiser about it, so that they did not have to live their lives in guilt; or, worse, give up what lives they had to join her in protecting the Door of Time.
    That's why she would never think any less of Michiru, in her ignorance, for saying, "Come, now, Setsuna. It can't be healthy for you to hide yourself away like that for so long."
    Hotaru, by that time, had wrapped her arms about her waist, and had begun to look up at her imploringly. The sight evoked a pang in her chest, but she kept the feeling from showing itself on her face.
    "I've missed you," Hotaru said, her voice strained a bit by emotion. "Please say that you'll stay for a while."
    "I'm sorry," Setsuna apologized, placing a comforting hand on the girl's head before evasively adding, "Maybe some other time."
    Haruka turned her head aside, snorted, and said, "Coming from you, 'another time' could mean another era."
    "Now, Haruka," Michiru softly chided.
    Setsuna sighed, knowing that this was for the best. It would be far better for them to think of her as being anti-social, or a workaholic; to see her as a cold, distant woman. Should they ever think about it too much, and realize her sacrifice, then they might want to get involved as well... And she couldn't have that. She cared about them too much to subject them to a life in the fourth dimension.
    Turning her attention to the still-seated princess of the thirtieth century, she gave her a significant look. "I need to speak with you in private."
    Hotaru reluctantly drew away from her, with an obvious pout, as her pink-haired friend took to her feet. Said friend followed Setsuna as she led her out the front door and to the veranda of the outer senshi's colonial-style house. The day was nice and warm, and the light breeze carried pleasant scents from the fields and trees around them. It was quiet, save for the rustling of the trees and the tinkling of a nearby wind chime.
    They regarded each other with impassive expressions for a time, their eyes locked together in silence. Setsuna loved the young girl who stood before her, and she had made great exceptions — for her sake — when it came to upholding her duty. Even now, despite the additional evidence that their current confrontation had brought to her, she couldn't get angry. What she could do, however, was get answers.
    "I would have preferred coming here to ask if you had simply lost the key," Setsuna began, her voice level and calm, "but that doesn't explain how someone would know how to use it. And your lack of concern, right now, just reinforces what I have already come to suspect."
    Getting no immediate reaction from her, she continued. "Why? Short of myself and the queen, you know — more than anyone else — why you shouldn't try to change history. You know how dangerous it is."
    "Why do you think?" Was Chibi-Usa's calm reply. "You wouldn't be here if you hadn't met her."
    "I could have killed her," Setsuna pointed out, her brow furrowed. "And I almost did."
    "It was a possibility," Chibi-Usa admitted, her calm exterior faltering a bit — showing some guilt — before she recovered. "But it was the best approach that I could come up with. If I had gone directly to you with this, you would have dismissed it outright."
    Setsuna's expression softened. "And you know why. As I've said before, you don't have to worry about—"
    "It's not just you that I'm trying to do this for," Chibi-Usa interrupted, her gaze sorrowful. "This is for her, too."
    Confused, Setsuna asked, "Are you trying to say that guarding the Door of Time with me, in the fourth dimension, is going to be an improvement for her?"
    Chibi-Usa nodded her head, before she removed a small device from her skirt pocket and held it out for Setsuna to accept. After doing just that, the sailor senshi of time looked it over, not knowing what the grey-colored object was. It was flat on one side, while the other convexed into a modest dome. Set in the middle of the dome was a small, white crystal.
    Not being familiar with all of the technology from the future, she regarded the pink-haired girl with a questioning look. "What's this?"
    "It's a memory device," Chibi-Usa replied. "It was made so people could record their memories, for short-term use, so they could replay them later and prevent themselves from forgetting something important."
    She pointed at the device and continued in a more serious tone. "That has my memories of my time with her. It will answer all of your questions, and better understand what I'm trying to do."
    It was that last part that concerned Setsuna, since becoming sympathetic would make it hard for her to adhere to her duty as the Guardian of Time. It was bad enough that her love for the princess had already compromised her position on numerous occasions. However, that same love was the reason for why she would trust her and use the device.
    After some direction on how to use it, she closed her eyes and placed the flat side of the device against her forehead. The crystal lit up for a few seconds, and during that time she remained motionless. When the light in the crystal went out, her eyes remained closed. Her brow, however, strained with warring emotions. She remained that way, for a time, before she removed the device from her head and opened her eyes, which gazed intently into the pair of dark pink ones across from her.
    Chibi-Usa nodded, as if to answer some question that had not been vocalized. Then, with a pained expression, she quietly asked, "Do you understand, now?"
    "But..." Began Setsuna's half-hearted response.
    Shaking her head, Chibi-Usa sternly said, "Don't say it. From what you've just learned, you should know that my mother supports this idea. Since I set this up so you can decide whether or not the 'point of no return' occurs, it's up to you to decide her fate."
    After staring at Chibi-Usa's resolute visage for a time, without seeing her balk, Setsuna closed her eyes and sighed in resignation. The princess was serious, which put her into a rather unwelcome position. Awakening Charon, at best, would be a short-term solution. A sailor senshi could spend an eternity in the fourth dimension, after all. That meant that the solution would only last for as long as her tolerance for the fourth dimension did. Unless...
    "Fine," she finally replied, as she opened her eyes and leveled them at the girl in front of her. "I'll be sure to give it some serious thought."
    Pleased by that answer, Chibi-Usa nodded her head. "Good."
    Setsuna smiled slightly as she regarded the maturing princess from the future. She was already more mature than her mother had been, at her current age. Although that wasn't all that surprising, considering the fact that she had grown up with more responsibilities; responsibilities that reminded her of her own, and her continued reason for being in her presence.
    "There's one more issue that I'd like to address, before I go," she said, her smile vanishing.
    Chibi-Usa tilted her head inquisitively. "What's that?"
    "From what I've gathered," Setsuna began, "you used someone else to get," she paused for a second, as she considered which pronoun to use, "her to the fourth dimension. Which was a good idea, but I need to know what you told them."
    Waving away Setsuna's concern with a hand, Chibi-Usa said, "All I told him was that it would get someone lost forever. Whatever he might have said, beyond that, must have been made up in order to trick her into using the key."
    Mollified by that answer, Setsuna nodded her satisfaction. Of course, while she knew what the boy had been told was true enough, a person who knew how to use a key to the fourth dimension could navigate it just fine. That Ranma had been able to find her, despite not knowing how to use the key for that purpose, was nothing short of curious. She would have to ask her about it, once she got back to her, though she had an idea regarding how it had been accomplished. In the end, it was amazing how many risks the princess had been willing to take for the girl, in order to alter her future.
    When she tried to return the memory device, Chibi-Usa shook her head. "Hold on to it. Depending on your decision, you might need it."
    Setsuna nodded her understanding. Since her attire wouldn't accommodate the device, what with it having no pockets, she sent it away — in a flash of light — to join a number of other items that were normally accessible while she was Sailor Pluto.
    "Well," she began, as she glanced toward the door, her thoughts being pulled elsewhere, "I guess I better be going, then."
    She raised her hand, to the level of her elbow, and her keychain belt appeared in her hand, after a brief flash of light. She plucked one of her keys from it and handed it to Chibi-Usa, who accepted it with silent gratitude. Afterward, they went back into the house, where they parted ways. While the princess of Crystal Tokyo returned to the living room, to continue the conversation that she had been having with Hotaru, Michiru and Haruka, she climbed the stairs and made her way back to her bedroom on the second floor. Before she entered her bedroom, however, she transformed into Sailor Pluto: she didn't think that there was a need to reveal her identity to Ranma, just yet — that is, if she were to ever decide to do so at all.
    When she opened the door, she was met with the sight of the girl standing on her head, with her hands planted on the floor, and her legs crossed as if she were seated. She paused within the doorway and stared, their eyes catching, and she wondered if it was some kind of obscure meditative position. Then she watched as the girl deftly rolled along her back and hopped onto her feet in a single, smooth display of motion.
    After stretching her neck a few times, to get the kinks out of it, Ranma casually asked, "So, is it time to go?"
    Pluto nodded her head silently in reply, her thoughts racing. She had to make a decision, but she couldn't think of a good enough reason to come up with a definite answer, in regard to Ranma's potential future as her partner in guarding the Door of Time. Awakening her to a sailor senshi's existence would be easy, but doing no more than that would jeopardize the stability of the third dimension since too many changes would probably be made in Ranma's life, to the extent that the princess wouldn't have traveled back into the past to set in motion the events that had eventually made her a sailor senshi in the first place.
    Basically, if she decided to give Ranma her sailor crystal, and make her a sailor senshi, then she would have to assert some control over her life, so that the events of the future — that inspired her princess to travel back into the past — would still take place. However, the whole point of the princess' mission was to prevent the events of the past that led up to producing the events of the future. Somehow, she would have to manipulate events so that the same end could be acquired through a different means. Making her a sailor senshi in the past, rather than in the future, was a part of the solution; but, it was also a major part of the problem.
    What it all amounted to, of course, was Ranma spending a lot of time in the fourth dimension, with her. However, without being a sailor senshi, she wouldn't be able to stay for long periods of time, like she could, since a sailor senshi's power maintained their health. They could forever forgo food and drink, as well as sleep, in order to maintain an eternal vigil over what they protected. If she intended to help the redhead, as the princess of the future wished, then she would need to keep her in the fourth dimension for a long time, in order to work out a solution for the problems that they both shared in — and with — the third dimension.
    And then, of course, there was the fact that she didn't really know the girl — certainly not the girl of the past, at any rate. She wasn't about to put her in a position to learn about the most fiercely-guarded secrets without first knowing if she could be trusted with them, as the late queen had done for her. However, it did give her an idea, as well as an opportunity to think further about what her ultimate decision would be.
    She removed one of the keys to the fourth dimension from the chain about her waist and approached Ranma, with the key held out to her. When she got a questioning look in response to her offering, she said, "This is so you can come and visit, if you ever need a retreat, or a place to think."
    Ranma blinked her eyes incomprehensibly as she accepted the key, and quietly said, "Um, okay..."
    "Oh, and before we go," Pluto spoke up, after a short pause, "I was wondering if you could answer something for me."
    Ranma rubbed the back of her neck. "It depends on what you want to know."
    "I was just curious as to how you found me," Pluto posed.
    "I don't know," Ranma answered, with a shrug of her shoulders. "I usually can't sense anyone from that far away."
    Then, almost as an afterthought, she turned her head away and quietly added, "Though it may have been because of how powerful you are."
    Pluto noticed the veiled admittance within that last comment, and wondered if losing to her had become a bit of a sore spot for the redhead. As if in answer to that thought, she saw the makings of a pout, one that was barely kept from being fully expressed. She had to smile to herself, knowing that the girl in front of her — who was practically exhibiting a girlish mien — was actually a guy...
    Still, since she had expected Ranma's initial answer, she nodded her head. "Well, be sure to use that to find me, if you ever decide to pay me a visit. Should you lose your way in the darkness, you can get lost... Forever."
    Showing a little surprise, as well as shock, Ranma wanted to make sure that she had heard her right. "Forever?"
    "Forever," was Pluto's solemn response.
    Realizing what kind of danger she had been in, Ranma's eyes widened a bit further from her initial reaction as she stammered, "I-I see..."
    Smiling despite herself, Pluto placed a hand on the girl's shoulder. "Just keep that in mind, and you shouldn't have anything to worry about."
    "Now," she continued, her smile replaced by an expression that was meant for business, "let's return you to where you belong."
    With that said, she summoned her Garnet Rod into her other hand. She raised it as far as the ceiling of her bedroom would allow, without bumping into it, and then the Garnet Orb began to glow. After a bright flash of light, and an accompanying rush of air, they were gone.


Chapter 4


    Sailor Pluto, not for the first time since returning to her post, wondered about Ranma and the kind of future that awaited her. Would even her decision to allow the girl to visit her bring about enough changes to herald a paradox? She did not know. Normally, she would have banished the idea of doing anything of that nature outright, but both the queen and the princess of the future were applying too much pressure on her to do that. However, neither could she just accept — out of hand — what they wanted her to do, which left her with her current dilemma.
    Personally, she didn't consider herself to be an unkind soul, but the moral responsibility of countless lives far outweighed the plucking of heartstrings from a single person. It was bad enough that some of those heartstrings were also being plucked by herself, ever since a part of her had seen the opportunity to end her solitude. She had thought that part of her dead, but it had merely been resting, waiting for a sign of her prospective partner's existence. It had only given the impression of being dead, because it wasn't difficult for one to forget the things that weren't within one's perception: out of sight, out of mind, as it were.
    If Ranma were to take her up on her offer, she didn't know what she would do. On the one hand, she would risk betraying her solemn vow as the guardian of the Door of Time (yet again); on the other, she could serve the interests of the new queen and princess, whom she now served. Either she could uphold her duty and maintain the status quo, or she could risk it all for the lives and feelings of a few people... Which included herself.
    That last thought is what bothered her the most, since personal gain was the main reason for why the late queen had seen it fit to prevent time travel — no matter what the reason, and at any cost. Yet, her heart had already made exceptions to that edict. She was already on a slippery slope, and she knew where a thought like, "well, if I've already gone this far," could lead to. Despite that, however, she couldn't escape the position that she now found herself in: stuck in between the desires of a queen and princess whose hearts loved so much, and a heart that yearned to have the void within it filled.
    It was all so frustrating, to the point where she felt the onset of tears, but she rallied her strength and tried not to think about it any further. Of course, despite her best efforts, her thoughts would wander back, and she would wonder what she would do if the yet-to-be-awakened sailor senshi of Charon decided to make an appearance. She had invited her because of her indecision, after all, and she couldn't remain indecisive forever.
    Chibi-Usa, however, now knew of her decision. While she had yet to come to a decision in the here and now, it had not been long since she had sent the princess of Crystal Tokyo back to where she belonged, in the future. She hadn't come back to complain about the choice that she had made, though that wasn't a good enough indication of what it had been. Either way, in the end, she hoped to make the right one.
    Eventually, as fate would have it, Ranma did — indeed — come to visit. A part of her was disappointed that she didn't get lost in the fourth dimension, since that would have solved the dilemma that she found herself in (even though it would have undoubtedly caused a paradox). Another part of her was glad for the company, even if they were — for all intents and purposes — strangers. And yet another part of her was trying to handle the mixed feelings that her presence evoked inside of her.
    She watched as the redhead escaped the last tendrils of the darkness, only to stop and regard her with a wary expression. Considering how their last meeting had gone, she found the reaction amusing: because, unlike the last time, she had been invited. Still, she couldn't very well divine her answer from the girl while she was in her current state, so she smiled disarmingly and waved her over.
    That seemed to do the trick, as Ranma had visibly relaxed and began to close the distance between them. While she waited for her to reach her, she wondered why she was a girl, rather than a boy. Perhaps she could find out, once she got to know her better. For now, however, she had to focus on her goal: she was hoping that she could come to a decision by interacting with the pigtailed martial artist, to see what kind of person she was.
    Once Ranma was standing in front of her, an awkward silence descended upon them. She seemed to have more than one thing on her mind, as if she couldn't decide on what she wanted to say. On her end of things, she was considering how she was going to treat her, since she didn't want to be too chummy nor too cold, lest she risk making a decision based on behavior that had been inspired by what she herself had dictated. She would have to find something in the middle, even though she was sure that it wouldn't be easy to do.
    Finally, she broke the silence by casually asking, "So, what's the occasion?"
    Ranma, both glad and disappointed for having the direction of the conversation made for her, shrugged her shoulders. "It was lunch."
    Pluto, having noticed that Ranma hadn't brought any lunch with her, asked, "Did you already eat, then?"
    Not wanting to say anything about Akane's culinary skills (or the lack thereof), which might inspire a line of questioning that she didn't want to get into, Ranma turned her head aside and evasively said, "I just wasn't hungry."
    "I see..." Was all that Pluto could say in response, knowing that there was something that the redhead didn't want to talk about.
    The awkward silence came back with a vengeance, as neither of them knew what to say or do next. Pluto stood by calmly, as she usually did when guarding the Door of Time, and watched as Ranma struggled with something internally. Like before, it seemed like she had something to say, but — for one reason or another — she couldn't get it out.
    Finally, Ranma mumbled, "I guess I'll just sit over there," and walked away.
    Pluto followed her with her eyes, without turning her head, and watched as she decided upon a spot opposite of her own position — in relation to the Door of Time — and sat down. She couldn't help noting that, had there been another person to guard the Door of Time with her, her choice of location would have matched her own. If she hadn't known any better, she would have thought that something was trying to drop her a hint.
    Be that as it may, she returned her attention to the fore and continued what she had been doing before her guest had arrived. It was obvious that Ranma wanted to reach out to her, so she decided to not distract her with conversation and give her a chance to say what was on her mind. She felt that it would be better for the redhead to take the initiative, so she could determine her own footing in regard to how she would interact with her.
    Finally, after a long stretch of silence, she heard, "Why?"
    She turned her head to regard the profile of her guest. Her head was slightly bowed and her eyes appeared to be in the act of boring through the mist that rolled over her crossed legs. She had an idea of what she wanted to ask her, but she waited for her to complete her delivery.
    After a brief pause, Ranma turned her head, looked up at the dusky-skinned Guardian of Time with a serious expression on her face, and asked, "Why didn't you follow through with your attack?"
    While she had anticipated the question, Pluto still wasn't sure how she should answer it. It was a question that could heavily influence what her ultimate decision would be, because it would set the initial dynamic of their relationship. In the end, she decided that honesty would likely work out for the best.
    "Because you and I are the same," she replied levelly. Seeing the questioning look that she received in response, she added, "You are also a sailor senshi."
    Ranma blatantly eyed her outfit up and down. "What's a sailor senshi?"
    Pluto turned to face her audience of one, swept her hand across the front of her body, and said, "We are the protectors: of people, of places, of life."
    Ranma followed suit by turning her body to face her, which made it possible for her to glance over at the Door of Time as she quipped, "And large doors."
    "It's not just any door, as I'm sure you've figured out," Pluto replied, smiling with some amusement.
    "Well, yeah," Ranma admitted, as she scratched the side of her face. "Something to do with time travel, right? That's what the directions on how to use the key seem to suggest." Upon getting a nod, she continued. "And I kind of noticed that less time had passed than I had thought, after you got me back from..." She paused, blinked her eyes, then remembered to ask, "Where is this place, anyway?"
    "We're in a place that's between one time and another," was Pluto's vague response. "Time spent here doesn't pass where we come from. When I sent you back, you had only been gone for the amount of time that you had to wait in my bedroom."
    Ranma could only nod her head in response, having caught the hint at the beginning, and thus didn't press any further. She went quiet, instead, as she considered her next line of questioning. Pluto waited in silence, glad that she had understood. She was also pleased to see that the other girl was already starting to open up to her.
    After a moment, Ranma deliberately said, "So, I'm a sailor senshi," while the expression on her face queried, "What does that mean?"
    "Yes, you are," Pluto calmly answered. "But it's up to you if you want to awaken to your powers or not."
    Next, Ranma pointed at her outfit. "Would I have to wear...?"
    "Something like this?" Pluto finished for her, with a mild grin of amusement. "That's right."
    That seemed to curb Ranma's interest a bit, if the face that she had made in response had been any indication. Still, it hadn't completely extinguished her interest; and, certainly, her curiosity seemed to be as strong as ever.
    "So, if I decided to become a sailor senshi," Ranma said, in order to set up her question, "then what would I be expected to do?"
    "You're free to do whatever you want, really," Pluto replied, her face becoming an expressionless mask. "You could work independently, join the rest of the sailor senshi, or you could even help me guard this door."
    Ranma had so much information to digest with that answer, that she had almost missed the subtle change in Pluto. She had said a lot, somehow; yet, at the same time, she had hidden something significant. The last suggestion, in particular, while being mentioned as casually as the rest, had stuck out in some way. It took her a moment to figure it out, and realized what it meant, but she decided to not make an issue out of it — not yet, at least. They still didn't know each other all that well, after all, and she wasn't about to pry so long as the same courtesy was returned in kind. Perhaps, when the time was right...
    Instead, she asked, "Are the other sailor senshi named after planets, like you are?"
    Pluto nodded her head. "For the most part, in our solar system's case. Sailor senshi in general, however, are named after a variety of celestial objects, as well as defined spaces."
    To follow up on her last question, Ranma prodded her with, "So, which one would I be?"
    "Charon," came Pluto's simple response.
    Ranma blinked her eyes and tried to remember what Charon was. She lowered her head and considered her lap, as her mind tried to dig up what she wanted to know. When she failed to do so, she looked back up at Pluto, with the intent to ask her about Charon, when — upon laying her eyes on her again — she was reminded of the information that had been eluding her.
    She hopped up to her feet and exclaimed, "Hey, that's the moon of the planet that you're named after!"
    Pluto responded with an amused smile. "It is, indeed."
    Ranma considered what she had just learned, and what its significance was in relation to what she already knew. It certainly explained a few things, and put her situation into a better-defined context. However, before she could continue that line of thought any further, her stomach decided to express its displeasure about being ignored.
    Pluto raised an eyebrow at the sound. "Not hungry, huh?"
    Ranma turned her head away and mumbled, "Something like that," before she sighed and — more loudly — added, "Maybe I should try to get something before the lunch break is over."
    Knowing what that meant, Pluto asked, "Would you like me to send you back now, then?"
    "Sure," Ranma said, accepting the offer, before walking over to her.
    Once she was standing next to her, Pluto commented, "Well, it was short, but when you've got to eat, you've got to eat."
    "Sorry," Ranma apologized, who felt a bit like a heel for having come to visit her as a means of avoiding someone else. Well, that was just half the reason, but that didn't really change anything.
    "Don't worry about it," Pluto said, as she waved the apology away. She raised the Garnet Rod before adding, "You're welcome to come here any time, for whatever reason, and for however long you wish."
    As soon as she finished speaking, she began to concentrate on when and where to send Ranma. Once she had locked onto the destination that she wanted, the redhead was consumed by a flash of light, and — with a rush of air — she was sent on her way, back to a classroom not currently in use.
    As she lowered her Garnet Rod, and resumed the stoic posture that she usually held while standing guard before the Door of Time, she reviewed her time with Ranma and how it had gone. It had gone well enough, all things considered; but, she still worried about the end result, which was still an unknown. Certainly, what she had said would better serve a later date, though it was too early to tell whether there would be a new sailor senshi in the future.
    In the end, she was sure that she had given Ranma plenty to think about. She didn't doubt that she would return; the reason for her coming back, however, would remain to be seen. Would she want to learn more about what she had already been told, other related subjects, something else entirely, or a combination of the aforementioned possibilities? She didn't know how their interactions would evolve, and thus had no real expectations, though she would take care to handle everything as carefully — and with as much foresight — as she could. (Well, short of traveling into the future: doing that was off limits, after all.)


Chapter 5


    Sailor Pluto's mind wandered as she stared at the shadowy veil ahead of her, wondering when Ranma would make her fifth appearance. Thinking about the martial artist was a distraction that helped to pass the time in a more meaningful way, compared to her usual methods, and the last three times had certainly given her a few things to think about.
    For one, she continued to show up as a girl, and had yet to mention anything regarding the particulars of her curse. She wasn't sure as to why that was the case, but figured that she might reserve that information for those that she trusted. It was a thought that could hold unwanted implications, if it were true, but she was unwilling to bet on an unknown so soon.
    Then there was the fact that she didn't say much about herself; and she didn't really try to learn anything about her, either. A lot of silence came between them, but she felt that it was the companionable kind. The redhead seemed to appreciate not being held to any expectations, now that she was allowed to visit the fourth dimension freely.
    In the end, she wasn't able to learn much more than she already knew about her. On her second visit, for instance, she had seen — in application — what she had already learned about her: that she was a martial artist. She had come to practice her skills in relative privacy, and she had stood by silently and watched while she had done so, knowing that she had come for more than just that. However, whatever the reason for her visit, they hadn't exchanged many words beyond a pair of greetings and a few parting words.
    The third visit had been a bit different, in that Ranma had shown obvious curiosity for her duty. She had done so by trying to stand guard in front of the Door of Time, approaching it as if it were some kind of contest to see who could outlast the other. She hadn't stood a chance against her, of course. It hadn't taken her long before she had begun to fidget, and after several hours she had gone so far as to fall asleep while she was still standing on her feet. After she had woken her up, by reaching over with her Garnet Rod and rapping her on the head with it, she had been met by the guttural moans of the girl's hungry stomach, which had been shortly followed by a question.
    "Don't you need to sleep, or eat?" She had inquired.
    To which she had replied, "No, I don't. The duty of a sailor senshi requires eternal vigilance. To that end, our powers sustain us."
    Ranma had been properly awed by that revelation. Then she had fallen over, in shock, when she had asked her for the longest stretch of time that she had ever spent performing her duty, uninterrupted: which had been quite a number of centuries. That particular tidbit of information had the gears in her head working so hard that the effort had been as plain as the sweat on her brow. However, despite how much she had wanted to ask a follow-up question, she had held her tongue even though the desire to do so had been written all over her face. She felt that it was a good sign, that likely indicated a respect for the part of her duty that guarded secrets.
    The fourth time had been like the second, in that not much had been said between them. It had been understandable, however, since Ranma had stumbled toward her, on a stick, with her clothing in tatters and her entire body covered in light to moderate injuries.
    When she had asked her what had happened, she had said that Ryoga — the guy that had given her the key — had been angry about her not being lost. Incidentally, because he had wasted his time trying to get her lost, which had resulted in his relationship with Akari going further south, he had blamed her for Akari's decision to have some time alone, so she could re-evaluate their relationship. He, of course, had taken that to mean the beginning of the end of their relationship, which had made him depressed enough to pull off a full-powered shishi hōkōdan. While she had been able to trounce the idiot, she had endured three of those attacks in order to do so.
    Ranma had refused her offer to help her, since she had only wanted to lie down and recover in peace. As a result, she had been able to do no more than watch as she collapsed and slipped into unconsciousness. It had reminded her of her own determination to guard the Door of Time by herself, so that others would not have to concern themselves with such a responsibility.
    When she noticed Ranma making her way out of the darkness, she focused her mind on the present and wondered what her fifth visit would entail. Once she had parted from the darkness completely, she was able to see the troubled look on her face. It made her concerned, because she was worried about what it might mean.
    She had to take a chance, so it was with a look of concern on her face that she asked, "Is everything alright?"
    Ranma stopped in her tracks as she realized her mistake, but she quickly recovered and put on a false smile. "I'm fine. I just came here so I could do some thinking."
    Pluto gave a single, understanding nod of her head and said nothing. She knew that she had been told a lie, but she also understood why it had been made. She only hoped that she would open up to her soon, so she could reach a decision before time could make it for her.
    Ranma continued to walk toward the spot that she had gone to during each of her other visits, and sat down. She made sure to face the same direction as Pluto, in an effort to hide the shame that had arisen on her face, from having to lie to her. However, she didn't think that it was time to speak to her about some of the things that were on her mind; in particular, of what she had been thinking about since the day that they had met, which now tied into her current predicament.
    While Ranma ruminated, Pluto kept her eyes on her. She watched as the expression on the girl's face, in profile, changed from one to another, then back — though the emotion that repeated itself the most was frustration. At the same time, she also saw her express herself in the way that she moved about: in one instance she would have her chin planted into the palm of her hand, and in another she would be pulling at her hair. All in all, it painted a rather clear picture of what was going on in her head.
    It wasn't until Ranma hung her head, and stayed that way, that she decided it was time to do more than stand around. The time, it seemed, had come for her to take a more active role in the decision-making process. She feared that, if she did not act soon, she might make a mistake that she would not be able to undo, a mistake that she may live to regret for a very, very long time.
    The feelings in her heart had, thus, won over the importance of her duty; and not for the first time, either. Rather than think about it, and what that said about herself as the guardian of the Door of Time, she slowly yet resolutely made her way to the one person who — at the moment — took precedence over the lives of countless others.
    She knelt beside Ranma and laid a hand upon her shoulder. In response, she raised her head and looked into her eyes searchingly. If she had a question in regard to her gesture, she did not show it.
    Ranma continued to look into Pluto's eyes, as she considered what to do. Her attempt to resolve things by herself had met with failure, though she felt that, if she had more time, she might be able to come up with something. The problem, as she saw it, was that — without being a sailor senshi — she wouldn't be able to stay in the fourth dimension for as long as her efforts might require. However, if she wanted to become a sailor senshi, to buy herself some more time, she would have to be honest with Pluto and reveal how much she knew about what had happened to make their meeting possible.
    The real issue, of course, was one of trust. Could she trust her life to the one who called herself Sailor Pluto? She knew that she was to make an important decision, in regard to her well-being, and that had been the reason for why she had initially been wary of her during her first, official visit. Someone had set things up so that the Guardian of Time would be forced to decide whether or not she would become her new partner in guarding the Door of Time, though she hadn't put all of that together until the end of said visit. She didn't want to know what would happen if Pluto decided to stay solo, because she knew that she probably wouldn't like it.
    Between that, and her situation back at home, she was between a rock and a hard place. She needed help, and for that she needed someone that she could trust, someone that could understand, someone who knew what was going on, and someone who wouldn't judge her for being in the mess that she found herself in. Was Pluto's gesture the message of hope that she had been looking for?
    She would have to take the chance to find out.
    Finally, she softly stated, "I know what's going on."
    After showing her surprise, Pluto's expression turned to one of worry as she quietly asked, "How did you find out?"
    "I overheard what was said from your bedroom," Ranma guiltily admitted, her eyes downcast. "I thought I'd open up the window, to get some fresh air, but..."
    "We were talking right below my bedroom, and your curiosity got the better of you," Pluto concluded. She closed her eyes, took her hand from Ranma's shoulder, and then applied it to her brow as she muttered, "Which means that it's probably already too late..."
    Ranma blinked her eyes in incomprehension. "Huh?"
    Pluto opened the eye not blocked by her hand and regarded Ranma with it. "How much did you hear?"
    "I think I heard everything," Ranma conceded. "It sounded like something unpleasant was going to happen to me, and someone wanted you to have me as your partner in order to prevent it."
    "Then the decision has already been made for us," Pluto replied, before heaving a heavy sigh. She opened her other eye, moved her hand away from her face, and softly added, "You've come to know too much. I'm sorry, but that means that you must become a sailor senshi, if we're to have enough time to resolve this."
    With a look on her face that clearly expressed betrayal, Ranma asked, "I don't have a choice?"
    "In this, I'm afraid not," Pluto replied, with evident regret. "If we don't ensure that certain events happen, that made it possible for you to meet me in the first place, it could spell disaster for our universe in the third dimension."
    Ranma eyed her skeptically. "Just because of me?"
    "That's the way it works," Pluto wearily confirmed. "It's not so bad when you look at the bigger picture, since there are an infinite number of universes in the third dimension, but ours is unique to us: our very presence itself doesn't require accommodation, or carry the risk of destroying it. That's not something to take for granted, and I'd like to think that preserving everyone and everything in our universe means something, even if it's just personal."
    She shook her head before she lowered her eyes and continued, murmuring, "I didn't want it to be like this, believe me. If I had my way, we never would have met in the first place..."
    Ranma considered the last of what Pluto had said for a moment. "What do I have to do?"
    Pluto raised her eyes to meet Ranma's. "You'll need to re-enact the actions of your future self, so a certain someone from the future will decide to go into the past and try to get the two of us together."
    Once Ranma had adequately absorbed Pluto's answer, and realized something, her brow furrowed. "Wait. If this time travel stuff is so dangerous, then why did they do it?"
    "They thought that you were worth the risk," Pluto replied, with a wan smile.
    The muscles in Ranma's brow relaxed, though a hint of fear showed in her eyes. She gazed up at Pluto, took a deep breath, and quietly asked, "Am I?"
    Pluto held out her hand and offered it to Ranma. With a note of amusement dancing in her eyes, she said, "I hope so."
    Ranma released the breath that she had been holding, in obvious relief. Pluto's decision had been weighing on her mind for the past few weeks, making her wonder what kind of future awaited her if she didn't become a sailor senshi. Of course, becoming a sailor senshi had also come with its own concerns, but the research that she had done on them — between visits with the Guardian of Time — had allayed most of them. How it might affect her curse aside, she wasn't adverse to the idea of protecting people from things that they couldn't fend off by themselves. If anything, being a sailor senshi would make her life as a martial artist a more fulfilling one.
    She accepted Pluto's hand with a smile and rose to her feet with her, who returned the smile before she stated, "Meiou Setsuna."
    "Huh?" Came Ranma's intelligent response.
    Pluto chuckled a bit. "That's my name."
    "Oh," Ranma replied. Then, upon realizing what was going on, she hastily — and more enthusiastically — said, "Oh! I'm Saotome Ranma."
    "Well, Ranma," Pluto began, as she retrieved her hand from said person, "let's do our best to clean up the messes that we find ourselves in."
    Ranma nodded resolutely. She then watched — with mild surprise — as an object appeared right in the hand that she had been holding a few seconds ago, after a brief flash of light. She saw that Pluto now held a translucent, heart-shaped crystal, which seemed to glow with its own, inner light.
    She accepted the object from Pluto, when she gestured for her to take it, then looked it over. It was beautifully cut, felt weightless, and was warm to the touch. Her fingers, seemingly of their own volition, caressed its surface. She didn't know how to explain it, but it felt right to have the object in her hands.
    Once she could take her eyes off of it, she returned her gaze to Pluto and gave her a questioning look. "What is it?"
    "Your sailor crystal," Pluto stated softly. "When you call upon its power, you will awaken as a sailor senshi."
    With an absent nod of her head, Ranma glanced down at her sailor crystal. "Yeah... It's weird, but I feel like I know what to do in order to do that."
    She then looked back up at Pluto and decided to broach a subject that she assumed her green-haired companion might very well be aware of. So, with a bit of worry coloring her voice, she hesitantly asked, "I won't have any problems with my... curse, will I?"
    Pluto frowned. "I can't say. I'm afraid that there's only one way to find out."
    "I somehow knew that would be the case," Ranma muttered in reply.
    She crossed her arms, scrunched up her face as she took some time to consider the possibility of being stuck as a girl, then sighed in resignation. If she didn't become a sailor senshi, which would offer her the means to prevent a temporal paradox, then being stuck as a girl would be the least of her concerns: because everyone might not have any concerns at all, should they cease to exist.
    So, it was with obvious reluctance that she held her sailor crystal above her head and shouted, "Charon crystal power, makeup!"
    The change was instantaneous. As with the activation of her curse, it was if her sailor senshi form had been prepared to show itself at the flip of a switch. It was surprisingly unremarkable, because — aside from a brief light show — most of the changes were subtle and unseen, being made aware of them without the senses being intruded upon.
    Knowing what the most obvious change would be, she took a moment to look herself over. Her uniform was similar to Pluto's, with the notable exception of its color scheme, which was reversed: where Pluto's skirt was black, hers was burgundy; where Pluto's bows were burgundy, hers were black; and so on and so forth. Once her inspection was done, she tested her uniform's functionality with some movement, by stretching and contorting her limbs and torso in various ways, and was pleased to find it highly accommodating. Only the boots proved to be a bit restrictive, but it was nothing that a little practice wouldn't be able to take care of. As for the skirt, well... She didn't have enough feminine modesty to care about that.
    Knowing that there was one more thing for her to check out, she held out her hand and summoned her Obsidian Oar. Like Pluto's Garnet Rod, it looked a lot like a giant key, with matching teeth along the shaft, but the similarities ended there. What could have been considered the bow of a key was the flat blade of an oar, except it was heart-shaped instead of rectangular. It also seemed to be made of obsidian, which was not only shiny but made the blade's edges look very sharp.
    She held her new weapon parallel to the ground, and discerned the distribution of its weight by raising and lowering it a couple of times in quick succession. Afterward, she tried a few practice thrusts, as well as swings, before she tried some more complicated maneuvers to see what she could do with it without the teeth along the shaft getting in the way.
    Once she was done, Pluto — who had been watching in silence — spoke up and asked, "So, what do you think?"
    Charon considered her weapon for a second before she looked up at Pluto and solemnly said, "I hope I never have to use the business end of this thing on someone."
    "There is that," Pluto said, and gave a nod of understanding, "though I meant more in the general sense."
    Charon shrugged her shoulders. "I've worn worse. At least this outfit comes with a few useful perks. But," she began to frown, "it's a bit weird how normal this feels. It's like I've been this way the whole time."
    "I'll get around to explaining why that is," Pluto responded, "but, for now, would you like to check the status of your curse?"
    Charon nodded, with a serious expression on her face. "I've just gotta know."
    "Then I'll be right back with some..." Pluto paused, in order to search her memory. "Hot water, was it?"
    "Yeah," Charon confirmed.
    Pluto winked at her. "Keep an eye on things while I'm gone, okay?"
    Charon nodded and watched as Pluto vanished, leaving her to guard the Door of Time while she went to the third dimension to get some hot water. Now that she was alone, she released a tired sigh and wondered why she always found herself in situations that seemed to be beyond her control. Sure, her current obligation actually seemed to have a resolution, but that didn't make her feel any better about it.
    She considered the Obsidian Oar that she had in her possession, then she glanced at the Door of Time, knowing that she now had access to it. It would be so easy to open it and travel back through time, in order to change things in her past for the better. She knew better, of course, but the temptation was there.
    "If only things could be solved so easily," she thought morosely.
    Besides which, she was in her current position in the first place because of the exact same thing that she had been thinking about. It would be better to solve one universe-endangering problem before contemplating the creation of another. Then, perhaps, she could focus on the problem that had inspired her latest visit to the fourth dimension. She hadn't been able to think of a solution for it, of course, but she hoped that being a sailor senshi — while in the fourth dimension — would give her enough time to think of something.
    Thinking about it, though, made her scowl. Kasumi had overheard their parents earlier in the day, making plans to spring another wedding ceremony on her and Akane, and she had warned her about it shortly after she had returned from school. There had also been something in her eyes, however: she expected her to know what she had to do. True, most of their yet-to-be-resolved affairs were from her end, not Akane's, but that didn't make it any easier for her to figure out what she had to do. It was hard enough to not know the extent of her feelings toward Akane, and it didn't help that she was unsure of whether she was ready for marriage or not.
    "Why does everything always have to get so complicated?" She groused.
    When Pluto returned several minutes later, she saw that she was holding two cylindrical thermoses to her abdomen. One was dark blue and had an underwater theme, with images of coral at the bottom and tropical fish swimming throughout, while the other was light blue and featured the sky, with images of clouds and birds in flight. She supposed that one contained hot water, while the other contained cold.
    After dismissing her Garnet Rod, Pluto set the dark blue one on the ground so she could hold the light blue one with one hand while she opened it with the other. Once she had the top off, some light vapor could be seen wafting out from inside of it.
    Now that the moment of truth had arrived, Charon asked, "Should I change back, first?"
    "Not just yet," Pluto advised. "We should find out if it affects you like this, so we know ahead of time whether or not we need to worry about a potentially compromising situation."
    Charon showed her understanding with a nod. "Makes enough sense, I guess. Let's do it."
    Pluto proceeded to pour half of the thermos' hot water over Charon's head. When the curse didn't deactivate, she said, "Well, at least we won't have anything to worry about on this front. You can change back, now."
    Once Charon was Ranma once more, she blinked her eyes a couple of times before she looked down at herself and frowned.
    Pluto showed concern upon seeing said frown. "Is there something wrong?"
    Ranma shook her head and mumbled, "Not really," before she folded her arms beneath her bosom and nervously added, "I just hope that I can be a guy, again."
    Pluto gave Ranma a look of sympathy. "Ready?"
    "As I'll ever be," Ranma replied.
    She closed her eyes and waited for the rest of the hot water to be poured over her head. She felt it happen a second later, along with the sensation of growing within her clothes, and he breathed a sigh of relief. However, even before he opened his eyes, he felt decidedly... different — strange, even. Everything seemed to be accounted for, after a quick check, but that didn't dispel the feeling that now came from his body.
    "Something's not right," he conveyed his thoughts aloud.
    Pluto ceased her appraisal of Ranma's male body, seeing as it had been the first time that she had actually seen it. "Can you tell what it is?"
    "I don't know," Ranma replied, with a shake of his head. "It's familiar, though. It kinda reminds me of..." A shocked expression appeared on his face as he exclaimed, "What the—!? This is how it felt to have a female body, back when I first got cursed!"
    Rather than being surprised or worried, Pluto calmly said, "That's because you've awakened to your natural form."
    Ranma gave Pluto a look that was a mixture of confusion and accusation. "What do you mean?"
    "What I mean," Pluto began to explain, "is that, once you are aware of your star seed (which not only makes your current life possible, but every one of your past and potential lives possible as well), its nature will become natural to you."
    "For instance," she went on, "you didn't have to learn about your abilities as a sailor senshi, did you?" After Ranma shook his head in the negative, she continued. "And that's because that knowledge has always been with you, in the same way that Charon's body has always been with you. The nature of your star seed — of who you are at the fundamental level — is a constant regardless of what body you wear. You've only had your current body for a few years, whereas your star seed has existed since the birth of this galaxy. Compared to that, there's little wonder why your female body is the one that feels natural."
    Ranma furrowed his brow and frowned. "So, let me get this straight: you're saying that I'm a girl where it matters?"
    "That's one way to put it, yes," Pluto casually replied, with a tinge of amusement in her voice.
    "It figures," Ranma grumbled.
    "At least you can still be a guy," Pluto helpfully pointed out.
    Ranma sighed and slouched his shoulders. "Yeah; I guess it could be worse."
    "Speaking of which," Pluto spoke up, with a serious expression on her face, "if you intend to keep your male body as an option, then don't ever transform into a sailor senshi when you are in this form."
    Despite suspecting the answer, Ranma had to ask the question. "Why?"
    "Because all sailor senshi are female, and not all of this solar system's sailor senshi were born as such," Pluto informed him.
    "I see..." Ranma quietly replied, as the implication sunk in. "I'll be sure to remember that."
    With that issue now out of the way, Pluto returned her attention to the thermos in her hand. She set it aside and exchanged it for the dark blue one, which — with a few quick twists of the wrist — she had open in no time.
    "So," Pluto began conversationally, "are you ready to get down to business?"
    Ranma nodded his head solemnly, and the cold water from the dark blue thermos was dumped over his head a second later. After shaking her head, in order to scatter the water that trickled from her hair, she transformed into Charon and stood ready for what she would have to do next.
    Pluto regarded Charon for a moment before she held out her hand and opened it. Her hand revealed nothing until a brief flash of light heralded the appearance of the memory device. She made a gesture that told Charon to take it, who did so with a bit of hesitation.
    Charon considered the strange object with a wary expression before she looked up from her hand with a questioning look. "What's this thing?"
    "That's a memory device," Pluto replied. "I honestly don't know much about it, beyond what it does."
    Charon looked upward and had a thoughtful expression on her face. "I think I recall hearing something about this thing..."
    "It's how I learned what I have about you," Pluto informed her. "In particular, the memories that were stored in it were meant to convince me to help you."
    After Charon mulled over what she had been told, she — more to herself than to Pluto — mumbled, "So, it's true..."
    Since she felt sorry for Charon, Pluto placed her hand on the girl's shoulder, gave it a gentle squeeze, and softly said, "While you're not going to like what you're going to learn, it should give you an idea of how to resolve the situation back at home, once we're finished settling the matter that we have to deal with in the future."
    Charon stared into Pluto's eyes, and began to wonder about her. She wasn't like the other girls that she knew, even though she was — in fact — a woman. She was like her, with a responsibility and obligations that were at conflict with how she felt; but, unlike herself, she was more mature and experienced when it came to such affairs. Given time, could she become just as capable?
    Once it became apparent that she was being stared at intently, Pluto calmly asked, "Is there something on my face?"
    Charon shook her head before she lowered her eyes to the memory device and murmured, "I was just thinking."
    Rather than pursue what she was thinking about, Pluto withdrew her hand from Charon's shoulder and instructed her on how to use the memory device. It wasn't long before she had to stand by and watch as the other sailor senshi closed her eyes and applied the device to her forehead. A second later the device was activated, and the white crystal at its center, which stuck out of the domed top, lit up.


Chapter 6


    I once again found myself walking down the streets of the Nerima ward, amidst the shops and vendors of its shopping district. Here, far from the heart of the city, there were far fewer of the crystal structures that Crystal Tokyo was known for among the buildings. Thus, it was easy — in light of that — for this area to remind me of the twentieth century. In addition to that, it was one of the few places in the city that still practiced old-fashioned vending, like one would find in that time period, rather than the high-tech and/or magic-oriented establishments that were the norm nowadays.
    I imagine that the expanse of farmland was what helped to make it all possible. All in all, I really like this part of the city, since — when compared to most of the rest of it — there was a rustic sort of feel about the place. And I've met plenty of nice people here, too. There were even a few who had discerned my identity, as the princess, yet treated me as they would any other girl my age. It was so different, in an appreciable way, from how I was usually treated in the wards around the palace, where a lot of the upper-class citizens lived. Their kind tended to have only one thing on their mind, since I was royalty, the heir to the throne, and only a few short years from becoming eligible for marriage (now that my body was maturing as it should).
    I mentally shook my head, in order to get my thoughts back on track. I was out here — in part — so I didn't have to be around the people that thought of my existence as an object, a goal, a conquest, or some combination thereof. Mainly, however, I was out here to mingle and interact with those that I will eventually rule over, so that I can know and understand them better. Considering how much time my mother had to stay in the palace, to perform the duties and responsibilities expected of her as the queen, it had been her idea for me to get closer to the people; before I — like her — became distanced from them, once I succeeded her as the new queen.
    I have some reservations in regard to becoming the queen, but I know that it is inevitable. Not only do I have tutors that teach me what they think a ruler should know, beyond what's normally taught at primary and junior high schools, but I am a sailor senshi with my very own guardian senshi. Above all, I am now the official owner of the Silver Moon Crystal, which had undergone a transformation to reflect that it now belonged to me, as the Pink Moon Crystal. It wasn't that I disliked the idea of becoming the queen, because I'd like to do whatever I can so that others may live happy lives: I just didn't like the feeling that I was born to become the queen, as if I had no potential for anything else, rather than having a real choice about my future.
    I suppose, since I've been expecting it for so long, that the idea of becoming a queen just didn't interest me as much as it might other people. Here, in particular, where a lot of people led the simple life outside of big business, high society and politics, was one of a short number of exceptions in the city. And that's why I liked the Nerima ward: because many of its residents were more down-to-earth, where thoughts of becoming the next ruler were placed after family, the grocery list, and doing a job that — while small and didn't net them a fortune — was still significant enough that it warranted their attention. They were simply being realistic, and I liked that.
    Since I was hungry, I began to look for a snack. It came as a welcome distraction from the general vein of my prior thoughts. I found a vender that sold crêpes, so I stopped by and ordered a strawberry one. I knew the vender, so I exchanged a few words with him before I continued on my way, since there were a few particular people who lived in the area that I intended to see before I had to return to the palace.
    One such person was a primary school teacher, by the name of Ninomiya Hinako. She got along well with her students since she could switch between being young — like them — and being a mature woman. I was yet to understand how that worked, exactly, but she was good company and that was what counted. Then there was Tendo Kasumi, who ran a very successful clinic all by herself. She practiced old medicine, some of it unconventional, that she had learned from the previous owner of the clinic. While the result of her treatments weren't as fast and efficient when compared to modern medical science (in most cases), her services cost a lot less and the end result was adequate enough by most standards. However, that wasn't what had drawn my attention to her. Aside from the fact that she was the older sister of Tendo Nabiki, who had almost single-handedly caused the Apocalyptic Depression of the twenty-sixth century, she was the most beloved person in the community. A kinder soul one could not find. On top of that, she had a lot of interesting stories — about martial artists, mostly, of all things — and she told them as if they were true. Sometimes, I wondered if they really were or not.
    In particular, I thought that it would be interesting to meet Saotome Ranma, the character that was featured in many of her stories. He was often a character that was involved in (what I thought to be) the tallest of the tales. He was also the most complex character, but that may have been due to embellishment on the storyteller's part. I mean, he had a curse that could change his sex (depending on the temperature of the water), multiple fiancées and rivals, and a knack for attracting — or causing — trouble. I simply couldn't pin down his personality, because he could be nice and doing the right thing one moment, then be a jerk and doing something wrong the next.
    What intrigued me the most, and made me wonder if the character was based on a real person, were the times when I caught a sad, faraway look on Kasumi's face, after she had told one of the stories that featured Ranma as the main character. One time, I had even asked her what had become of him, just out of curiosity, and she had gone quiet and told me that he had killed himself a long time ago. That hadn't been the kind of ending that I would have expected for his character, and I was disappointed by it. However, Kasumi had clearly looked upset, as if she were taking the character's death too seriously, so I didn't ask for the manner in which he had died. I didn't want to upset her any further, in case Ranma turned out to be a character that had been (albeit loosely) based on a real person.
    I returned all of my attention to my surroundings, when I felt the presence of a sailor senshi nearby. Like my mother, I was particularly sensitive to the energy that their star seeds exuded, and I had been trained to sense it. I was curious about the sailor senshi's identity, since it was uncommon for any of them to visit this part of the city, so I stopped in front of a restaurant's storefront and casually began to look around for them. I wasn't expecting any of my guardian sailor senshi to be out and about, as I had ordered them to never follow me on these occasions.
    After nearly a minute of searching, and with no success, I frowned and took a bite out of my strawberry crêpe. Since I couldn't rely on finding them with my eyes alone, being that they might be out of sight, I put more effort behind my ability to sense them, in order to "feel out" where they were. I tracked the feeling to a woman who had long, free-flowing red hair, who wore a modest, long-sleeved floral-print dress whose midi-length skirt fluttered just above her low-heeled sandals. She stood before a display of cabbages, with her tote bag held in front of her, and appeared to be having an animated conversation with the vendor that was standing behind them.
    Since I had only homed in on the direction of the sailor senshi, I focused harder, expecting my senses to pick up my quarry some distance beyond the woman that I was looking at. However, I almost dropped my snack when I realized that the energy was being exuded by her. I couldn't believe that I was looking at a sailor senshi that I had never seen before, nor heard anything about. Realizing that my mouth was open, I closed it and continued to stare at the red-haired woman, not knowing what I should do.
    The woman ended her conversation with the vendor before too long, and began to walk away. Without really thinking about it, I began to follow her. I suppose I could make a few calls and inquiries, but that could wait. Besides, I wanted to find out more about her, first, before setting things in motion that couldn't easily be retracted (if at all). At least, it was my belief that not just anyone should be made aware of who or what they were, if it risked giving them or others grief... or worse.
    I followed her out of the shopping district. I had so much of my attention on her that I almost failed to notice the familiar neighborhood that I found myself in soon afterward, as I followed her deeper into Nerima's residential area. It was quiet, as few other people were out and about at this hour (for business or otherwise). I did notice Mrs. Takanara when she waved at me, and I had the presence of mind to wave back, but I didn't deviate away from my current activity to engage her in conversation like usual.
    When she finished crossing an intersection, while I was still on the other side of the street, she stopped walking rather abruptly. I found myself standing still, as well, since that seemed like the thing to do.
    Since she didn't turn around to engage me in conversation, I was a bit surprised when I heard her ask, "Was there something you wanted, or are you going to follow me around all day?"
    I wasn't sure how I could respond to that. I couldn't just tell her that I was following her around because I thought that she was a sailor senshi, could I? More importantly, I didn't like the sound of her voice, that seemed so devoid of life and hid whatever she may or may not be feeling. I had a hard time reconciling that with the animated visage that I had seen only a short time ago, and it didn't help that she spoke with her back facing me.
    When I failed to answer her quickly enough, she said, "If it's nothing important, then stop following me."
    After she took a few steps forward, on an impulse I called out to her. "Wait!"
    I was relieved when she stopped. I wasn't about to lose this opportunity, so I gathered my wits and asked, "Who are you?"
    She tilted her head ever-so-slightly toward her shoulder, enough to show an ear but not her face, before — with a tone that conveyed an underlying threat — she said, "It's none of your business."
    She began to walk away from me, again. I tried to understand why she might treat me as she had, but my anger and stubbornness got the better of me, since I felt like I had to act before she got away. Besides, she would know if I decided to tail her again, since she hadn't ever looked behind herself to catch me before, and I didn't think that she'd appreciate it. I didn't think that she'd appreciate a confrontation, either, but...
    "Hey!" I yelled, as I jogged across the street and caught up with her. "Don't you walk away from me!"
    "I could run, if you'd like," came her response.
    I was determined to find out her name, so I would have an easier time finding her records. Plus, her attitude was really grating on my nerves, since no one of importance had ever had the nerve to snub me. So, I picked up my pace, maneuvered around her, and stopped a few meters away in order to obstruct her path.
    I placed my hands on my hips and glared at her. "What's your problem, anyway? I just want to know your name!"
    I thought that she might decide to walk right into me, but she stopped an arm's length away and looked down at me. I shuddered a bit, as I looked into her cold, lifeless blue eyes.
    She cocked an eyebrow and simply asked, "Why?"
    I opened my mouth to tell her, but I came up short, and nothing came out. Again, I couldn't just tell her that she was a sailor senshi. Well, I could, but I'd have no idea how she'd react, or what she would do once she knew. Considering what kind of person she seemed to be, I was beginning to wonder if I should pursue anything with her at all, and to just leave her to whatever kind of life she led.
    "Hold that thought," she suddenly told me, much to my confusion.
    Then, suddenly, I heard someone cry out, "Ranma! Prepare to die!"
    Before I knew it, she had jabbed my forehead with her index finger, and I tried not to fall as I was forced several steps back. Despite that, I was able to watch as she casually stepped aside, just before someone's fist connected with the ground that she had once stood upon. Then I found myself falling, as the ground beneath me, and several meters away from the impact zone, concaved. I stumbled and fell onto my rear, and my strawberry crêpe was squashed beneath one of my bracing hands.
    It all happened so fast that I didn't know what to think, or how to react. All I could do was stare at the man in stunned silence, as I considered the kind of power that must have been behind his attack. I mean, I was now sitting in a crater that was so wide and deep that I couldn't even see over the lip from where I sat! I didn't know that a normal person could possess so much power... That is, if this man was normal at all.
    I heard the man chuckle darkly as he stood up and faced the woman who — despite her cold attitude toward me — had pushed me out of harm's way. I took in his appearance, and it appeared that his clothes had seen better days, since his pants and long-sleeved shirt were in a rather ragged and soiled condition. He wore a tiger-striped bandanna across his brow, and a large backpack on his back. His hair was dark and cut short, and quite unruly, while his eyes were green. I might have found him attractive, if not for the sneer that was on his face.
    I cast my eyes to the woman who had caught my interest, who now intrigued me even more as she stood — unfazed — within striking distance of the man who had displayed so much power upon his arrival. Somehow, I found something familiar about this situation, but I couldn't put my finger on what. I had the impression that this sort of confrontation was fairly normal between them.
    "It's about time I found you," the man said in a low, dangerous tone, his eyes flashing with malice. "With all of your scurrying about, like the cockroach you are, I'm lucky to find you every other decade."
    "That's the general idea," the redhead coolly replied.
    "Coward," the man shouted, as he pointed an accusing finger into the woman's face, mere millimeters from her nose. "I've seen Hell because of you, and I won't rest until you pay! Living like a frightened little girl isn't going to stop me!"
    In what sounded like a bored tone, the woman asked, "Are you done, yet?"
    The man's clenched fists now shook at his sides, and he gnashed his teeth as he growled out, "You never take me seriously..."
    That's when he noticed me. At first his eyes had darted in my direction, but then they had returned and the rest of his body had followed. I gulped beneath his hard gaze, and I grew distinctly nervous when a corner of his mouth curled up in a way that gave me a really bad feeling.
    "So," he said, in a mocking tone, his attention still on me, "you found a nice man to shack up with since the last time we met, eh, Ranma?"
    Suddenly, it clicked. The woman with the red hair and blue eyes, and the man with the tiger-striped bandanna: I was in the presence of two people that I had thought to be fictional characters. I was so shocked that the meaning behind what Ryoga had said had slipped beneath my radar.
    Ranma's eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"
    Ryoga chuckled and said, "Don't play dumb with me, Ranma. It's clear that she," he pointed at me, "is your daughter!"
    I glanced over at Ranma, and I saw her looking back at me, actually studying me with serious intent, though I suspected that it was just to humor Ryoga. I mean, I could see where we might be related, but I couldn't see how I could be her daughter. Of course, from what I remember about Ryoga, he had never been good at identifying people for who they were.
    I gaped at Ranma when she returned her attention to Ryoga and said, "So?"
    "'So,'" he repeated, as he turned to face Ranma, "if you care about your precious daughter, then you better take me seriously."
    For the first time since our encounter, I saw some real emotion being expressed by Ranma's face, and it was evident that she was disgusted by Ryoga's implied threat. So was I, but I was more worried about him carrying his threat out, since he was under the mistaken impression that I was her daughter. Sure, I could assume my sailor senshi form, but I wasn't sure if that would be wise. However, if she really was Ranma...
    "Fine," Ranma nearly spat, as she set her tote bag on the ground. "Let's get this over with."
    Ryoga grinned nastily. "That's the plan."
    He lunged forward, with his fist on a fast track to Ranma's face, and then... he was launched into the air. I tried to track him, but he flew so high, so fast, that he was soon out of sight. I wouldn't have even known to look up if I hadn't been watching from a seated position, where I was already looking in an upward direction. I returned my attention to Ranma, who calmly bent over to reclaim her tote bag. I wanted to say something, anything, but nothing had ever prepared me for something like this despite the stories I'd been told, or even the experiences that I've had as a sailor senshi. I've never known normal people — or even sailor senshi in their civilian form, for that matter — to display the kind of abilities that I've witnessed in the last few minutes. Furthermore, I never expected to meet someone like Saotome Ranma, if all that I had heard about her were true.
    "You might want to get out of the way," Ranma calmly told me, her gaze now focused skyward. "He's drifting a bit toward your direction."
    I scrambled to my feet and rushed to get behind Ranma, where I thought it would be safe. Ryoga landed close to where I had been sitting before, a few seconds later, with a loud crash. When the dust cleared, I saw that he was lying face down in a hole shaped very much like himself, and that he wasn't moving. It would have been hard for me to imagine a normal person surviving that kind of fall, but there he was, intact and still breathing.
    It wasn't long before Ranma stepped up to Ryoga and took him by the wrist, and I watched as she began to drag him away, wondering why she would move him, and to where. I followed her a few seconds later, once I got myself together and remembered why I had been there to witness what had happened in the first place. I decided to stay a few paces behind her, and a bit to the side, until I was walking parallel with Ryoga's legs. I didn't know what to say, so — aside from the sound of Ryoga's body being dragged along the sidewalk — we moved in silence.
    "He hadn't always been this way," Ranma broke the silence, who was still looking ahead. "Well, not this bad, anyway: there was a time when he wouldn't threaten the safety of an innocent person to get to me."
    I wasn't sure how to respond, so I kept quiet and waited to see if she had more to say. I was more than happy to learn whatever she had to offer, because I was under the distinct impression that she didn't normally give out information so freely.
    "He's a rather single-minded guy, though," she went on. "He's spent centuries chasing me around, to make me pay for whatever he's decided to blame me for, so I can understand why he would eventually lose sight of more important things. Actually, I'm surprised that he's only this bad after all of this time."
    She paused for a moment before she added, "I wish he'd get a life, though, instead of wasting it on mine. Sure, our lifespan has been extended greatly, but we're not going to live forever."
    I could have corrected her, what with her being a sailor senshi and all, but I decided against it. Instead, I gathered up the nerve to ask, "So, tell me, are you really Ranma? Saotome Ranma?"
    I was answered by silence. I tried to observe whether or not my question had any effect on her (especially a negative one), but I couldn't see her face, and her body language betrayed nothing. That had me worried, because I didn't know what to expect, if anything.
    What I didn't expect for her to say, after a long stretch of silence, was, "You know, Ryoga may have been on to something."
    Confused by what she meant, I asked, "What do you mean?"
    Ranma came to a stop, and I followed suit. Once she was regarding me, from over her shoulder, she said, "He thought that we were related. I doubt that, but we're related in some other way, aren't we?"
    I tried to not give my thoughts away, especially while under her cold, hard stare. I think my silence had revealed enough to her, however, because her gaze softened — ever-so-slightly — and didn't seem to be as scrutinizing as it had been before. Which was fine by me, since I highly doubted that I could have come up with a fabricated answer without some preparation first (not if I wanted it to sound believable, anyway).
    It did make me wonder, though. Did she know that she was a sailor senshi, or only that she was different? In either case, was she able to sense the power that only those with special star seeds possessed? In the end, she didn't pursue an answer, and instead turned her head away from me, to face the opposite direction. When I looked at what she had changed her attention to, I realized that we were standing in front of Kasumi's clinic. I had been so focused on her that it had escaped my attention entirely, even though I was quite familiar with the establishment.
    Without a word, I followed her as she drug Ryoga into the clinic. Once she was far enough into the lobby, to the point where Ryoga wouldn't be blocking the entrance, she let go of his wrist and allowed his upper body to drop to the floor. I stood just inside of the doorway, wondering what to do next. I had intended to visit Kasumi, after all. However, at this point, I didn't think that I needed to ask her if the redheaded woman was Saotome Ranma or not. The question that remained, then, was whether or not to awaken her to her powers as a sailor senshi.
    I was brought back to the situation at hand when the receptionist, a young-looking woman by the name of Sayuri, said, "Hibiki, is it?"
    "Yup," came Ranma's simple reply.
    Sayuri shook her head and said, "That boy never learns. Just move him over there," she indicated the far side of the seating area with a casual wave of her hand, "like always. Kasumi will attend to him shortly."
    After Ranma did as she suggested, she returned to Sayuri and said, "Well, I've got to go. Could you tell Kasumi that I won't be available tonight? Something came up."
    "Oh, my," a familiar voice drew my attention to the door that led to the back of the clinic.
    Standing in the doorway, while holding the door open, was Tendo Kasumi. She wore a simple housedress, which made her look more like a housewife than a nurse or a doctor. I had once asked her why she didn't wear anything formal when she worked, and she had told me that her methods of treatment rarely ever called for it. She had also told me that the previous owner, Ono Tofu, had also dressed casually. I was just glad that her choice in hairstyle, at least, wasn't as old-fashioned as her choice in clothing. She had her hair done up in one of those multi-decade dos, which were the kind that took at least two decades' worth of time to grow out to the proper length that was required to pull them off (although magic could grow one's hair out to an equivalent length in no time, which was how most people did it). She wore her chocolate-brown hair at twice the length of her body, and it was split into two sections and pulled back up to her neck, where it was secured by a white bow. The effect left two loops of her hair to sweep to and fro behind her ankles, and the ends to spray up from behind her shoulders.
    After Kasumi closed the door behind her, she returned her attention to Ranma. "You really can't make it?"
    "I can't," Ranma replied, and I saw her eyes make a gesture toward me.
    Kasumi, in following the gesture, noticed me for the first time. Rather than acknowledge my presence, she looked back at Ranma with a sad expression on her face. "Are you sure? It's been so long since the last time..."
    "I'm sorry," Ranma replied, though I couldn't tell by her empty expression, or dead voice, whether she was really sorry or not. "Maybe some other time."
    With that said, she raised the tote bag and set it down on the receptionist's countertop. Then, without saying a proper goodbye, she turned toward me and made to leave. However, since I was blocking the exit, and didn't feel like moving, she was forced to desist. That's when we made eye contact and began to stare at each other. I didn't know what to think about the situation, or how to feel about Ranma, so I really didn't know what I wanted to convey to her. I didn't even know if I could, had I known what to convey, because her eyes were missing that important spark within them, the kind that told me that they were alive and receptive.
    I broke eye contact with her, so I could seek guidance from Kasumi, and she made a gesture that told me that I should allow her to pass. Since I didn't know what keeping her any longer would accomplish, I stepped aside and said nothing as I gazed at her retreating back. Even after she was out of sight, I continued to look out the door, as if she were still there — if only in my mind's eye.
    I was startled when I felt someone's hand rest upon my shoulder, and I looked up to see Kasumi standing behind me. She had unshed tears in her eyes, as she looked out the door. Soon, however, she looked down at me and smiled wanly, and I couldn't help feeling responsible for what had happened... Whatever that happened to be.
    "I'm sorry, Kasumi," I apologized.
    She shook her head and said, "It wasn't your fault, Usa-chan."
    She returned her gaze to the door, for a second, before she turned away and walked back toward Sayuri... and the tote bag. I followed her, and watched as she peered inside of the bag before releasing a sigh. I noticed that Sayuri was uncharacteristically somber, which made me wonder about the contents of the tote bag, and what plans my presence had likely spoiled.
    Finally, I couldn't hold it in anymore. "Was that really Ranma?"
    Upon receiving a slight, almost absent-minded nod from Kasumi, I felt confused. "But... I thought he was dead."
    Kasumi and Sayuri shared a look before the former turned away from the tote bag and smiled at me sadly. "In a manner of speaking."
    At my questioning look, she elaborated. "A lot of things happened a long time ago, and ever since then she's closed her heart off to people."
    "What happened?" I inquired softly.
    "It's not my place to say," Kasumi replied, her gaze falling upon Ryoga's prone form, "but I know that she's the same person that she was in her youth, deep down. Otherwise, I don't think that she would have taken my advice, when I asked her to use the shiatsu techniques that I had taught her — meant to disable or render one unconscious — instead of using force."
    I followed her gaze and began to wonder. I didn't know whether Ranma had used any shiatsu techniques on Ryoga, in part because I wasn't familiar enough with them, but for Kasumi to tell just by looking at him...
    "I see..." I replied.
    And I believe that I did. The person that Ranma had once been, had — for all intents and purposes — died; he was gone, both in body and mind, buried beneath the experiences that had crushed him. Considering what I knew from Kasumi's stories, about what he had endured, I was afraid to know what could have happened, that had been able to defeat his indomitable spirit.
    "It's a real shame, though," Sayuri spoke up, as she regarded Kasumi with a sympathetic expression. "There's no telling when she'll be back. The last time was, what, fourteen years ago? It wouldn't be such a big deal if you did more than just sit down to share a meal together, but..."
    Kasumi bowed her head and spoke with a voice that was strained by emotion. "I know. I know... I want to h-help her, but... This is all I can do. I... I don't know how to r-reach her..."
    I was at Kasumi's side even before she finished speaking, and I held her tightly as she was overtaken by sobs. While I was trying to console her, a part of my attention was on the tote bag, the contents of which I now knew, along with what they meant. I now understood what I had to do: not only for Kasumi's sake, but for Ranma's as well.


Chapter 7


    I now stood before the closed door of my parent's bedroom. Since I had prepared to go to bed after meeting with my parents, I had chosen to wear my hair down for the occasion, along with a nightgown and a pair of fuzzy rabbit slippers. I had waited until bedtime to approach them because I felt that I couldn't involve anyone else, lest the multitude of people involved pushed Ranma away. Since I knew that bringing it up during the course of the day would not only depend on my parents' schedule, but also on the assumption that no one would overhear what I had to say, I felt that the privacy of their bedroom — at this time — would be the best option. (Besides, if I was going to be the queen one day, then I felt that I should ask if it would be possible to handle this on my own, if only because of the workload and issues that my parents already had to deal with on a daily basis.)
    Once I thought I was ready for what awaited me beyond the door, I straightened up, threw my shoulders back and rapped my knuckles against it, ignoring how the sound of my knocking resounded throughout the expansive hallway. When I heard the muffled response of my mother, in the positive, I opened the door and crossed the threshold.
    My parents' bedroom was somewhat small, considering the size of some of the other rooms that were in the Crystal Palace. I suppose it was due to their modest beginnings, when they were reborn on Earth, because the bedrooms in the moon palace were simply huge by comparison, as well as more lavish in general. Be that as it may, my parents did have a large, canopied bed, and other furnishings of notable size and quality.
    One such furnishing was the vanity. I found my mother sitting before its mirror, on a small, cushioned bench, wearing a beautiful nightgown. She gave me a smile, while she continued to brush out her hair, and motioned for me to approach her. I closed the door behind me and did just that, until I was standing beside her.
    My mother's eyes had returned to gazing into the mirror by that time, though her mind's attention was clearly on me. "Did something happen, today? I've been wondering all evening, ever since you told me that you needed to talk to me about something in private."
    "Well," I began, trying to sound as nonchalant as I could, "I did happen to discover a new sailor senshi."
    My mother paused, her hairbrush in midstroke, and a thoughtful look crossed her face. Then her brow furrowed, and she frowned a bit before she finally asked, "She wouldn't happen to have red hair and blue eyes, would she?"
    Surprised, I exclaimed, "She does!"
    Then, when I realized what that meant, I switched gears. "Wait... So you've known about her? For how long?"
    "It was after I banished Phantom to Nemesis for his crimes," she replied, and began to stroke her hairbrush through her hair once more. "As it turned out, she and a few others — though independent from them — were interfering with his plans when at all possible, but were mostly involved in the relief effort after the fact. The people were very appreciative of their efforts, so it goes without saying that I heard about them, and thought that they deserved a reward."
    She pursed her lips for a moment before she continued. "However, she was the only one who didn't respond to my summons. I wanted to reward all of them at the palace, so that everyone could see them and recognize what they had done. It took months to track her down, but she refused an audience. I wasn't about to give up, so I went to see her myself."
    "And that's when you found out that she was a sailor senshi," I concluded.
    "Yes," she replied, a look of frustration on her face, along with what appeared to be a bit of sorrow. "And when I offered to awaken her powers, she refused."
    "As I recall," my father chimed in, as he entered the room from the adjoining bathroom, wearing nothing but a pair of drawstring pants and a towel that hung from his neck, "she told you where you could shove your offer."
    My mother grimaced and muttered, "That had really ticked me off."
    Then she sighed, set down her hairbrush, and softly said, "So, I hounded her for a while. I followed her wherever she went, and we must have traversed a third of the world before I gave up. By then I finally realized just how seriously she took her solitary lifestyle, and thus why being a part of a team wasn't going to work." Then, with a faraway look in her eyes, she added, "She was behaving just like..."
    "...Pluto," I quietly realized.
    I didn't find out until after I had returned to the future, following the defeat of Chaos at the Galaxy Cauldron, that the Pluto that had been reborn in the past was a solitary guardian by choice. She might have always been that way, as far as I knew, but I never really realized the full extent of the circumstances surrounding her duty until she steadfastly refused to abandon her post at the Door of Time, whenever I had asked her to join me elsewhere.
    I had been under the impression that she would leave with me, since she had been relieved of full-time vigil back in the twentieth century. I found out, however, that she had only humored my mother... for a time. Then, due to the events leading up to Crystal Tokyo, and its eventual realization, she had been all but forgotten for quite some time. By the time anyone thought to get back in contact with her, she had already established that she was perfectly fine guarding the Door of Time on her own, for as long as she drew breath. And so it went, and no one — not even I — could convince her to leave her post, to accept help, or be relieved by a replacement (even if temporarily).
    It had taken me a while to understand why she had acted as she had, and why she continued to act that way. When I did, I stopped trying to convince her otherwise, like everyone else. No matter how much we all disagreed with her, we understood that — if we couldn't change her mind — it would be best to respect her sacrifice rather than resent it... or her for it.
    "Speaking of whom," my father spoke up, as he crossed his arms and leaned his back against one of the two posts at the foot of the bed, "we wouldn't have been able to awaken that girl's powers — even had she been agreeable to it — because she holds her sailor crystal."
    I turned to my father, with a confused look on my face. "Why would she have it?"
    "My mother entrusted her with it," my mother replied, releasing a sigh. "As it turns out, that girl—"
    "Ranma," I helpfully supplied.
    My mother nodded her head before she continued. "Ranma... is Charon, Pluto's counterpart."
    Surprised by that revelation, I hastily asked, "But, if that's so, then why...?"
    "Because your grandmother told us to leave it in her hands," my father told me, who now wore a tired expression on his face. "She believes that Pluto, in time, will learn to listen to her heart, as she once had."
    The sadness in my mother's voice was evident when she next spoke. "But it's been nearly a thousand years, now..."
    Silence descended upon us. I looked between my father and my mother, considered what I now knew, and thought of what I had planned to accomplish by seeing them tonight. I don't know if trying to help both Ranma and Pluto would be any easier or harder than before, when I only had Ranma to worry about, but that wasn't about to stop me. Ranma was a tragic case, so it went without saying that my heart went out to her. And Pluto was my friend, especially during a time when I thought I had no others.
    Finally, I tried to look as serious and determined as I could, raised my voice and announced, "Mother, father; with your permission, I would like to resolve these matters."
    My parents glanced at one another, shared a look, then returned their attention to me. My father, who had a serious expression on his face, asked, "Are you sure?"
    "Yes," I immediately replied.
    "I see," my mother said, who had been sharing my father's expression before she broke out into a smile. "Then I'll make whatever arrangements you need, in order to focus on your task."
    Before I could say anything more, or show my relief at their decision, she shot me a warning look and added, "However, don't put your studies — as well as your other responsibilities — aside for too long. You will not use this as an excuse to get out of them."
    I sighed with disappointment. "Of course."
    I gave my parents each a hug and a kiss goodnight before I left their room to find my own. It wasn't long before I found myself in my bed, thinking about this and that as I stared at the canopy above me. By the time I decided to give in and go to sleep, I had something of an idea, regarding what I wanted to do.

    I rose early in the morning, before the break of dawn, despite the protests that came from my body and mind. I assumed my sailor senshi form to take care of my fatigue, and I was soon flying over Crystal Tokyo with the intention of finding Ranma. I didn't expect her to get too far, considering how I had last seen her only yesterday afternoon, and I was right: it only took me an hour or so to find her in a wooded area, near Hachiōji city, which wasn't all that far from the Nerima ward.
    The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon as I alighted upon the ground, just outside of the woods, but my mind was too focused on other things to appreciate the sight. I steeled myself for what lie ahead of me before I marched into the woods, using a sense other than the normal five to guide me to Ranma's exact location. It took me several minutes of tree-weaving to reach her, and just in time.
    I found her in a small clearing, in the process of taking down her tent. Unlike yesterday, she wore khaki shorts, a black tank top and a pair of hiking boots, and her hair was pulled back into a pony tail. I'm pretty sure that she noticed me, she must have, but she continued her preparations to leave her campsite as if I weren't standing within her field of vision.
    Once she had her tent disassembled and secured to a large backpack, she turned her back on me and said, "I hope this doesn't become a family tradition."
    "I intend to succeed," I said matter-of-factly, rather than confidently. "So, this should be the last time."
    Rather than respond, she shouldered her backpack and walked away from me. Since I wasn't about to be discouraged by that, I fell right in behind her — as if I was supposed to be there, following her. We walked through the trees for a while, in silence, before we came upon a stream. I watched as she removed a canteen that had been hanging from the side of her backpack, opened it, then dipped it mouth-up into the water.
    I didn't want to seem ignorant or awkward in my handling of the situation, and thus I hadn't tried anything yet, but I thought that now would be a good opportunity to ask, "So, what do you have against being a sailor senshi?"
    "Nothing," came the simple response.
    I considered her answer for a moment. "Then what's stopping you from becoming one?"
    She removed her canteen from the stream, closed it, then secured it to the side of her backpack before she said, "I'm not interested."
    She hopped over the stream and continued her trek to who-knows-where. I wasted no time in following her, and took a moment to think about her response before I continued my offensive.
    "What part about it doesn't interest you?" I posed.
    I was answered by silence. I wasn't sure what to make of that, so I decided to keep to myself for a time, in order to think of another line of approach. As I did, I noticed that we were slowly traversing over higher ground, and on occasion we had to maneuver around — or climb over — boulders and other rocky obstacles. The trees were a bit thinner over the increasingly rocky terrain, but not by much.
    I supposed that she intended to make the mountains her next destination, for whatever reason she had for doing so. (If she had any reason at all, that is.) I think the current mountain in question was Takao, but I couldn't be sure: I wasn't as familiar with the area as I should be, and Takao wasn't the only mountain around Hachiōji city. Also, it didn't help that we seemed to be avoiding the hiking trails, where we might have found a sign bearing the mountain's name.
    As we trudged up a rocky hillside, I realized that I would have made quite a sight if we'd had an audience: what with the wings and the ribbons, and being the pink-themed sailor senshi that I was. There's no doubt in my mind that I looked completely out of place in this natural, earthy environment. I would have found the thought amusing, if not for the fact that I was supposed to be focusing on the redhead ahead of me.
    Then, suddenly, I heard a hiss. Before I knew it, Ranma was crouched before me, just to the side, with her arm outstretched. Her extended hand was grasping a snake, and its head was only a few centimeters from my boot-covered calf. Everything had happened so suddenly that it had startled me, making me take a step backward out of reflex. Since I was on an incline and my heel had found a loose stone, I began to lose my balance. Fortunately, before I really began the motions that would send me tumbling down the hillside, Ranma's free hand found mine and she held me fast.
    When I caught the concerned look on her face, I had a revelation. I now had a good idea of what the problem was, and — more importantly — what the solution might be. Not only was I sure that I now knew something about her that my mother didn't, I knew that I had the means to approach the problem in a way that Kasumi probably couldn't (through no fault of her own, of course). I realized that my chances of success had greatly improved, thanks to this chance endangerment of my life. Well, the snake wouldn't have been able to bite through my boot (whether it had been poisonous or not), and the tumble wouldn't have caused me any serious injury, but such details were unimportant in the grand scheme of things.
    Ranma was quick to wipe the concern off of her face, once she realized that I could see it, but — of course — it was far too late for that. As she tossed the snake away, and told me to be more careful in the future, I wondered if she even knew the extent of the information that she had just revealed to me. It wasn't a lot, in and of itself, but it had been enough to show me just what kind of puzzle I was putting together. Considering this, how she had moved me out of harm's way yesterday, and how she had been a help during Phantom's crime spree all those centuries ago...
    I decided to wait until she set up camp to go back on the offensive, because I felt that the confrontation would turn out better that way. Until then, there was one other thing that I wanted to know, that I had begun to wonder about in the back of my mind when I had first seen Ranma earlier this morning. I mean, from the stories that Kasumi had told me, Saotome Ranma had been a guy, and he wouldn't have been shopping in the market while wearing a dress if he could have helped it, or dress appropriately for a girl at any other time without there being an ulterior motive for it.
    "So," I eventually spoke up, "why are you a woman?"
    "Because I can bear offspring," came her reply, without the usual inflections that told someone whether they were joking or being serious. I nearly tripped and fell on my face in response.
    "That's not what I meant," I said, trying to be patient. "From the stories that I've been told, I kind of expected you to be a man."
    "Sorry to disappoint you," she answered.
    I glared at her back. Why was she being evasive about such a simple question? It didn't seem like such a big deal; not to me, at least. Or was she just being a jerk because that's how she is? I decided on a new line of approach to what I wanted to know.
    After I considered the wording of my question, I asked, "Has your curse been sealed, so you can't turn back into a man?"
    "What curse?" Came her response.
    I blinked my eyes in confusion, and wondered if she was playing dumb with me. It was hard to tell — even with what I knew — because her voice didn't express much, and I couldn't see her face.
    With a sigh, I decided to respond with, "You know, the one that turns you into a girl when you're splashed with cold water?"
    I watched as she tilted her head back and looked up at the sky, instead of where she was going, although that didn't seem to cause her any problems as she continued to walk at the same pace. "I didn't know that being female was considered a curse."
    Now I knew what she was getting at, even though it still left something unanswered. However, I didn't know how to respond to her, or even if I should push any further, so I decided to be quiet and follow her in silence. Well, about as silent as I could manage, considering how frequently the hard soles of my boots met with the rocky and often gravelly terrain that we were negotiating.
    I maintained my silence until the evening, which was when Ranma reached her next campsite. There didn't seem to be any obvious trails granting access to it, so I wondered how many people knew about it. It didn't appear to be much of an out of the way place, though, since we had crossed one of the hiking trails a few minutes before getting to it.
    While Ranma relieved her shoulders of her backpack and prepared to set up the tent, I decided to take in the sights. The first thing I spotted was the fire circle that was near the center of the campsite, and nearby were two benches set around it, which were little more than two slabs of stone. The placement of said slabs of stone were perpendicular to each other, and both seemed large enough to seat two people comfortably.
    There wasn't much else to see about the immediate area, so I quickly turned my attention to the only break in the trees that I could find, which appeared to be the sole source of natural light for the campsite at this time of the day. However, not only did it provide a good view of the sunset, but of Mount Fuji as well. With the mountain ridges, hills and valleys between here and there, and a sprinkling of low-lying clouds thrown in, it was an incredible sight to behold.
    The view also confirmed what I had recently begun to suspect: we were now on the other side of the mountain. I hadn't been sure, until now, because our approach had been at an angle instead of head-on, which meant that we had technically gone more around the mountain than climbed over it. We'd clearly gone over it, of course, but I had no idea of where or when we had done it: because our ascent had been moderate enough to include some instances of descent, and we hadn't been descending all that much — or for very long — before we had come upon the campsite.
    Either way, we were here now, and it was nearly time for me to play my hand. I glanced back at Ranma, to check on her progress, and I was surprised to see that she had already finished setting up her tent. Not only that, but she was now sitting on one of the benches, adding firewood to a pile comprised of the very same.
    For a second, I thought that she might actually use a campfire to cook a meal, because of her purchases yesterday. Instead, she brought out a tiny food capsule and used a touch of magic to release its contents, whereupon a ready-to-eat meal — as fresh as the moment that it had been prepared and served on the plate — had been brought out of stasis and returned to its natural size.
    Curry rice, huh? If not for the fact that I didn't need to eat right now, I wouldn't have minded having some of that, too.
    She must have noticed where my attention was focused, because she regarded me and asked, "Are you hungry? Or did you bring your own food?"
    I turned around to face her and shook my head in the negative. "When I'm like this, I don't have to eat."
    "Good," she immediately replied, as she raised her chopsticks and prepared to eat her meal. "Your mother was a real glutton, you know."
    I blinked my eyes in confusion, having caught the hint. "You fed her?"
    Ranma kept her eyes on her meal while she paused in between bites to say, "Of course. She tried all kinds of things when she was trying to convince me to become a sailor senshi, and one of them was starving herself and whining about how hungry she was. She must have figured that I would give in to her, if only to make her stop and shut up, but she ended up looking forward to my meals instead."
    My embarrassment must have been as evident on my face as it was in my voice when I said, "Yeah, that sounds like something she might do..."
    "Back then," she continued, almost absently, "I was still making my meals from scratch. With your mother around, not only did I need to prepare at least twice as much food than I usually did, but I had to make just as many more detours for supplies as well. It was such a pain."
    It may have just been me, but she sounded a little nostalgic, which gave me the impression that it hadn't been as much of a pain as she was letting on. I'll have to remember to ask my mother about it later, since I had something more important to do in the here and now.
    Speaking of which, I should probably prepare myself mentally for what I was about to do. I didn't like dredging up a past that I had put behind me, but I needed to make a connection with Ranma before I could hope to get through to her. This was something that Kasumi wouldn't have been able to do, perhaps even if she'd had a past like my own. My mother might have been able to do it, had she known what I knew, but I wasn't sure if what she had to offer would have been enough, or the right stuff.
    Either way, it wouldn't do to pass the buck at this stage, and I was bound and determined to pull this off myself, so...


Chapter 8


    I steeled myself and went over to the vacant bench, where I sat myself. I didn't think that it would do me any favors to begin my plan while Ranma was still eating, so I waited, using the time to put my thoughts together. I'd been thinking about what I was going to do — and how I was going to do it — all day, of course, but it was getting a bit difficult to concentrate now that the moment of truth was nearly upon me, which was doing a real number on my nerves.
    After Ranma finished eating, she returned the plate and chopsticks to the food capsule, before slipping said capsule into one of the pockets of her shorts. Then, before I could say or do anything, I watched as she pointed at the pile of firewood and set it on fire with a spell. When I turned my attention away from what she had just accomplished with said spell, I found her looking at me square in the eye.
    "Okay," she said, as she crossed her arms with an air of impatience, "let's get this over with."
    "Huh?" Came my intelligent response.
    She sighed with a bit of exasperation. "Don't play dumb. It's clear that you want to say something, and we both know what it's about." She pointed at the campfire that she had just lit, before adding, "I'll give you until the time that burns down to embers to do whatever you came here for."
    "Gee, that's awfully considerate of you," I replied, my words dripping with sarcasm. "What happened to the cold-shoulder treatment?"
    She shrugged her shoulders and said, "It didn't work on your mother, and it doesn't seem to be working on you, either. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if you had seen through my act earlier, anyway. So," she proceeded to lean forward and stare at me levelly, "let's see if being more candid will get you out of my hair within the next few hours, because I'd rather not repeat what I had gone through with your mother."
    This wasn't how I had imagined the beginning of our showdown playing out, since I had expected myself to be the one who took the initiative, but I could work with this. If I'm lucky, and it turned out that she wasn't going to be as reticent as she had been previously, perhaps I wouldn't need to fight tooth and nail to get the conversation to go in the right direction. There was only one way to find out, of course.
    "Alright," I agreed, as I crossed my arms and returned her stare, "then answer me this: did you know that Kasumi broke down and cried over you, after you left yesterday?" When she failed to respond immediately (which I assumed had something to do with my question being unexpected), I forged ahead and added, "How can you do that to someone like her, when she cares about you so much?"
    There was a flash of anger in her eyes, along with guilt, but her visage remained fairly impassive as she slowly said, "It's... complicated. Even if I told you my reasons, I doubt you'd understand."
    "Try me," I challenged, hoping that her answer would give me the opening that I needed to go after my actual target.
    She maintained eye contact with me as she leaned back into an upright position, her gaze trying to evaluate what was behind my own, before she sighed and glanced at the campfire. "Well, I suppose it would only be fair to make the limited time that I gave you worth it..." She paused, perhaps to figure out where to start with her next words, until our eyes met once more. "Have you ever felt so ashamed and unworthy of someone's attention that you couldn't face them?"
    I simply nodded my head in reply. It had been that way with Setsuna, after she had been reincarnated, since my actions had played a large role in the events that had led up to her death. At times it had been that way with my parents as well, until I had finally been able to become a sailor senshi and cleared up a long-standing misunderstanding regarding a few details that concerned our relationship.
    She seemed to consider my answer before softly saying, "Well, it's like that. I did a lot of stupid things when I was young, made a lot of mistakes, and when all was said and done she was the only one who still acknowledged me with kindness and concern." She chuckled self-deprecatingly. "One might think that too incredible to pass up, but I'm of the opinion that she's far too good for someone like me." She cast her eyes downward and sighed. "As much as I dislike hurting her, which is why I can't help humoring her from time to time, I hope to one day bring her around to my way of thinking, y'know?"
    I gave her a scathing look. "It sounds — to me — like you're still being stupid, and making a big mistake."
    She raised her eyes and fixed me with a glare. "See? If you had really understood that, you might have said something that could have warmed me up to the idea of becoming a sailor senshi. But now?" She snorted dismissively and turned her body away from me. "Maybe your daughter will have better luck."
    Seeing the opening that I needed, I performed the mental equivalent of taking a deep breath and thought to myself, "Here I go..."
    I slowly rose to my feet and stared down at her, with my arms akimbo and a stern expression on my face. "Is that what you think this is about?"
    "Isn't it?" Came her stubborn reply, with the smallest hint of uncertainty, as she continued to look away from me.
    "Let me tell you something," I said measuredly, as I made an effort to stay focused and calm. "For nine centuries of my life, starting when I was only six years old, my growth had been stunted — both physically and mentally. Can you even begin to imagine what that must have been like for me?"
    It was a rhetorical question, of course, so I continued without skipping a beat. "I could never appear as anything more than a child, and my inability to think and reason like an adult assured that I would be treated like one. No matter the amount of years I lived, I could never get the treatment that I thought I deserved, and it hadn't helped that my parents couldn't figure out what to do with me."
    "My peers began to outgrow me," I went on. "They had children, then their children had children, and so on and so forth. With each successive generation, I had to endure the speculations, gossip, ridicule, harassment... and bullying." I drew my arms to my sides and clenched my hands into fists, as certain experiences came to mind. "I didn't have any power, when I was expected to have some. I didn't have the crescent moon symbol on my forehead, like my mother did. To make matters worse, I don't resemble my parents as much as I'd like. Not even a DNA test, proving that I was the child of the queen and king, could stop how I was being treated."
    I paused, took a calming breath, and continued in a softer tone. "I felt so lonely, and I hurt so much inside. My parents were often so busy that they had little time for me, and I began to doubt that they loved me, which made me wonder if all those people were right about me being a 'fake princess.'"
    On a whim, I decided to seat myself beside Ranma, who continued to stare intently into the fire even as I began to do the same. "Then, one day, I couldn't bear it anymore. I had tried to act strong, both to protect myself and to prove who I was, but it never seemed to work. So, I went to the forbidden section of the palace, hoping to find a place where no one could find me..." I hesitated, not really wanting to admit what came next, which I had never shared with anyone before. "Well... To be more precise, I wanted to disappear."
    "I take it that you didn't," Ranma observed, without humor, or turning her attention away from the fire.
    I smiled wanly at that. "Fortunately, that was when I found my first, true friend. She was really nice, told me a lot of the same things about myself as my parents did, and cheered me up. Even though I wasn't supposed to be where she was, since her post and duty were of a secret nature, I was allowed to visit her whenever I wanted, and for a long time I took advantage of that privilege."
    "Several years ago," I continued, as I leaned back on my hands and looked up at the darkening sky, "the latest batch of children around my apparent age began to repeat what their parents had said and done to me, no doubt having picked it up from them, as they had from theirs. However, unlike those other times, they went so far as to challenge me, saying that I had to use the Silver Moon Crystal — in specific — to prove that I wasn't a fake princess."
    "As much as my friend had helped me to cope with my lot in life, I wanted even more to prove that I was the queen's daughter, because I wanted to grow up to be just like her. Of course, I would have liked it even more if I didn't have to cope with so many problems in the first place."
    With a sigh, I pushed myself forward and rested my forearms on my knees. "Unfortunately, right when I had managed to sneak up to the Silver Moon Crystal and took it, Nemesis and the Dark Moon had chosen that time to strike. Looking back on it, I can't help wondering if that challenge had been a part of their plan."
    Ranma raised her head a bit and said, "Hold on," before she turned her head to regard me. "Are you talking about that incident where the city was almost completely destroyed by that black crystal stuff?"
    I looked at her with a measure of surprise. "You were there when it happened?"
    "Not right when it happened," she corrected me, "but I went to investigate when I heard about it. I couldn't get too close, though, because my energy kept getting drained whenever I did."
    I nodded my head in understanding before I looked ahead, toward Mount Fuji, and continued where I had left off. "At any rate, I was practically the only one unaffected by the attack, and I had felt so alone, scared and guilty. Above all, I had felt useless." I chuckled humorlessly as I remembered the events that followed. "I recalled the stories that my parents had once told me, about Sailor Moon's exploits, and I had the bright idea to go back into the past and get the Silver Moon Crystal from her, even though I knew that it wouldn't work for me no matter which time period it came from."
    I heard the disbelief in Ranma's voice when she interjected, along with something else that I couldn't quite place. "You can travel through time?"
    Knowledge of the royal family being capable of time travel was supposed to be a secret; or, in the case of it being suspected, unconfirmed. However, if things with Ranma played out like I hoped they would, then it would become a non-issue. With that thought in mind, I nodded my head in affirmation.
    "Normally," I began to explain, my voice making me sound regretful all on its own, "time travel isn't allowed. My friend is tasked with enforcing that edict, but I — in the boundless wisdom of my prevailing youth — had betrayed her trust, so I could steal one of the keys that would allow me to travel through time." I sighed at the memory. "It wasn't one of my proudest moments."
    "I know how that is," Ranma replied, in a manner that made her sound distracted to my ears.
    When I looked askance, I saw that she wasn't so much looking at the fire as she was staring through it. I supposed that my mention of time travel had caught her interest. Even though I wasn't finished with my story, I decided that it would be remiss of me to not take advantage of her preoccupation with the subject, since I figured that my story (thus far) had accomplished as much as I could have hoped for already, to inspire sympathy and/or empathy.
    I turned my head to regard her directly and pointedly asked, "Is there anything that you regret?"
    She blinked her eyes clear before she focused them on me, via a sidelong glance. "That should be obvious, by now. So, what are you getting at?"
    I wasn't surprised that she was aware of my scheming, but I hadn't really tried to hide it: I'd only needed enough room to lay down some of the groundwork for what I had planned, and she had been patient and/or tolerant of my intentions long enough for me to do just that. Now, it was time to strike.
    "Is that why you don't want to become a sailor senshi?" I posed gently. "Because you don't want to live with your regrets indefinitely?"
    She looked away from me, but from her profile I could still see enough of her face to tell that she was deep in thought. When she failed to reply after a notable stretch of silence, I decided that it was time to see how much leeway my efforts had given me.
    Her body stiffened when I placed my hand on her forearm, but I went ahead and asked, "Can you tell me what happened?"
    She was silent for a few seconds before the tension left her body, which was accompanied by a heavy sigh. "Answer my question, first."
    I hadn't intended to keep my intentions a secret, so I leaned back on my hands, kicked my legs out and casually said, "What am I trying to accomplish? Well, at the very least, I'd like to help you and Kasumi."
    "I can't speak for Kasumi," she replied levelly, "but I never asked for any help, much less from a family of busybodies."
    I sighed and tilted my head back, and I noticed some of the brightest stars breaking through the waning light. "You're quite selfish and self-centered, aren't you? Instead of wasting your life like this, has it ever occurred to you to do something for the sake of someone else?"
    She snorted and crossed her arms stubbornly. "Who, exactly? Just about everyone I ever knew is gone, and..." She paused, closed her eyes and sighed with resignation. "And the pity in Kasumi's eyes is too much for me to bear, okay?"
    I lifted my head and looked at her oddly. "Why not tell her that?"
    "That's easy enough for you to say," she grumbled, before turning her head away and scratching at the side of her face. "I've never been good at that sort of thing."
    "Okay," I temporized, since I didn't want to argue about how she still had that kind of problem after living for so many centuries (especially since I wasn't one to talk, even though it had been beyond my control), "then what about my friend? Would you be willing to help a stranger?"
    "Is that the friend you mentioned before?" She inquired.
    After confirming that with a verbal response, she turned to face me once again and pointedly added, "Let me guess: she's a sailor senshi, right?" At my nod, she sighed and went back to staring into the fire. "I knew it. If Kasumi and I are going to be the least that you hope to help, then I'm assuming that you had intended to include your friend all along. And if she does what you say she does, I'm guessing that it would require them to be a sailor senshi."
    Left unsaid was the suspicion of having to become a sailor senshi in order to help her, since I had never clearly denied having such a motive, so I allowed my silence to confirm it. When that seemed to provoke heavy thought, I maintained my silence, not wanting to interrupt something that might work in my favor.
    Eventually, her furrowed brow receded and she quietly asked, "Tell me: why does she need help, and how would I be able to provide it?"
    Relieved that she wouldn't reject the idea outright, I said, "For the past nine centuries she's remained at her post, all by herself. She doesn't have to, but she insists, and won't let anyone join her or take her place — even temporarily. While I agree that it's important to guard what she does, and I respect her sacrifice, I can tell that she's lonely despite telling me otherwise."
    "How might you accomplish what no one else has?" I asked rhetorically, which inspired her to turn her wondering eyes toward mine. "That's because my friend is Sailor Pluto. And, if you awaken to your powers, you will become her counterpart: Sailor Charon."
    She looked at me questioningly. "How can you be sure of any of that?"
    "Because I've got a good source," I answered plainly, before I began to elaborate. "My grandmother — the late queen of the Silver Millennium, who now lives inside of a computer — seems to think so, and she's very reliable. She gave Sailor Pluto your sailor crystal for safekeeping, when she couldn't find your incarnation a very long time ago, because my grandmother had intended for her to have a partner." I paused and released a tired sigh, as I recalled various attempts to set her up with one of the other sailor senshi. "Unfortunately, my friend is more likely to accept Sailor Charon than anyone else, since she seems more partial toward my grandmother's desires than mine or my mother's."
    I was looking at her imploringly now, which seemed to make her uncomfortable enough to cast her eyes elsewhere as she asked, "So, you're hoping that I can keep her company, or give her a break?"
    I nodded my head resolutely. "She means the world to me. If it hadn't been for her sacrifice, when she had stopped time, I might still—"
    "Whoa, whoa, whoa," she interrupted me, her hands raised in a gesture that complemented her words, and her face marked by surprise and puzzlement. "Sacrifice, as in death? And that was her?"
    Now it was my turn to be surprised, but it faded quickly in light of being interrupted and suddenly having to tackle two questions. "Yes, and yes. Sailor Pluto has the power to stop time, but at the cost of her own life. I'm surprised that you noticed it, but maybe I shouldn't be, all things considered..."
    "But she died, right?" She pursued that particular subject, as she frowned in confusion. "Yet, it sounds like she's still alive."
    "She is," I confirmed. "My mother sent her back to the twentieth century, where she was reincarnated."
    She cocked an eyebrow at that and said, "It sounds like you guys do a lot of time traveling, even though you have someone who is supposed to prevent that from occurring. Isn't that supposed to be dangerous?"
    "It can be," I admitted, feeling a little embarrassed.
    She waved her hand dismissively. "Yeah, well, it doesn't really affect my answer, anyway."
    I perked up a bit at that, hoping for the best but noting that her casualness might not be a good indication of what to expect. "And what might that be?"
    With a serious expression on her face, she looked me straight in the eyes and stated, "No."
    I deflated upon hearing that, even though it hadn't been all that unexpected. "Can you tell me why you can't, at least?"
    She seemed to consider her response for a moment, before she sighed and said, "Well, you did answer my question. So, exactly how much has Kasumi told you about me?"
    "Not enough to tell me how you turned out like this," I softly replied.
    She nodded her head in reply, before she frowned thoughtfully and directed her gaze skyward. While I assumed that she was gathering her thoughts, in preparation for what she would tell me, I felt a little bad about the situation having to come to this, knowing very well what it is like to bring something back into the light of day that was probably best left in the dark and forgotten about. However, I had already made up my mind about this, and I was willing to go to great lengths for Setsuna. I could only hope that she would be willing to go the same distance for herself.
    Of course, I'd also like to improve the situation between Kasumi and Ranma, and help the latter in general. However, I didn't see that happening unless I could work things out with Setsuna, and I was convinced that I would need Ranma for that. If I have to take things as far as I'm beginning to suspect, then so be it. If everything pans out the way I hope, though, I won't regret my decision one bit.
    When Ranma appeared to be ready to talk, she re-established eye contact with me and deliberately said, "It began before Crystal Tokyo. I was still in high school at the time, and unmarried. As you're probably aware, Kasumi's sister, Akane, and I had been engaged by our parents."
    I nodded my head in acknowledgement.
    "Well," she continued, "our parents had sprung another surprise wedding on us, either assuming that we had resolved some of our outstanding issues or from having grown impatient with us." She closed her eyes and shook her head. "Akane and I had become closer after they had done it the first time, so maybe they had thought the effect would be cumulative."
    "Either way, they had tried to keep it a secret, so that there wouldn't be any surprise guests like last time. However, because they had only kept an eye on Nabiki since the day that they had made their plans, what they didn't know was that she was already a paid retainer for both Shampoo and Kodachi, in case just such a thing were to happen again. Ukyo had Konatsu casing the house, which I had been aware of, but I had let it go since I couldn't see what harm it could have done at the time."
    She released a long, drawn-out sigh, which left her shoulders slumped at the end of it. "Kasumi had been able to warn me about our parents' plan, but not when it would be put into action, and I hadn't known how much time I had to figure something out. As it turned out, I'd only had until the next morning, and I hadn't expected being captured while I was still asleep."
    She paused and stared down at her lap with an intense look on her face, where she had balled her hands into fists. I reached over and placed a hand over one of her fists, where I felt a tremor of emotion that she managed to hide from my eyes. She looked up at me, and I tried to convey — with a look — that I would understand if she didn't want to continue.
    She smiled tentatively in response, and the hand beneath mine relaxed as she said, "This is the first time that I've shared this with anyone, and this will probably be my only opportunity to do it, so..."
    I wasn't exactly sure what she meant by that, except that she was willing to continue, so I retrieved my hand and simply nodded my head.
    "Anyway," she continued, in a softer tone of voice, "things quickly escalated when Akane and I woke up, finding ourselves in the dojo and dressed as the main attraction for a wedding. We'd only just begun to protest the situation when the others came to stop it, even more prepared and determined than the last time."
    She closed her eyes, and I imagined that she was visualizing the events from her past with her mind's eye. "Everything happened so fast, from virtually everywhere, at pretty much the same time. Kuno came at me with his sword, so there was nothing new there. Ryoga 'just happened' to turn up again, at that exact moment. I learned later that his relationship with Akari had been rocky at the time, which explained why he had once again been of a mind to keep Akane and I apart, since he'd never fully gotten over her to begin with. Unexpectedly, Mousse had actually tried to help me," she snorted with displeasure, "but — of course — he had been worse than useless without his glasses on."
    She opened her eyes halfway and stared down at her lap, and I'm not sure if the flickering light from the campfire had anything to do with the turbulence that I spied within her eyes or not. "Like last time, Ukyo and Shampoo had gone after Akane. Only this time they had been joined by Kodachi, who had focused her attention on me the first time around. In the confusion, I didn't see who scored the hit on Akane, but her father went ballistic when it happened. Until I had seen it for myself, I'd had no idea that the man could be capable of such savagery, as he single-handedly fought Kodachi, Ukyo and Shampoo away from the premises."
    "And me?" She said quietly, just barely above a whisper. "I had been mortified. The girl I liked was lying prone on the floor, bleeding profusely from gaping wounds in her left leg, caused by a combination of explosive and acid. Despite what some might expect from someone like me, I'd never seen such a grisly sight before. At the time, I'd been too naive to think that anyone would do such a thing, especially if they wanted me to like them romantically."
    "Everything changed after that," she stated, with a touch of sadness to her voice, which had been raised back to a normal speaking volume. "Akane being upset over being maimed and disfigured would be an understatement. No one could enter her hospital room without getting an earful — not even Kasumi had been spared from that. I never tried, though, because I was really conflicted at the time, and I was afraid of what she might say to me."
    "Anyway, when she was released from the hospital, the first thing that she did was break Nabiki's jaw. After that, she began to pack up some of her things, so she could move out and live with a friend." She paused, and went quiet for a moment before she continued. "We had bumped into each other before she had left. I couldn't find any words to say to her, even though I had tried. She hadn't said anything to me either, and had avoided looking at me, so I had assumed the worst of what that could have meant."
    She turned her body away from me a bit, until she was facing the campfire, and then rested her folded arms upon her knees. I followed suit, and for the first time I truly sensed that our exchange had become a companionable affair, as opposed to being a confrontational one. Considering where her tale was going, I could understand why she would begin to drop her guard to this extent.
    "I was filled with a lot of self-doubt and guilt," she went on. "I didn't know what to do with myself. Not until our parents began to take out their frustrations with Akane out on me, because she had said a lot of things about them that they hadn't wanted to hear, as well as due to the situation in general. In addition to that, they'd had the nerve to tell me that I had to choose either Nabiki or Kasumi to replace Akane as my fiancée."
    "I decided that Akane had the right idea. So, I left while everyone was asleep, since I didn't want to meet with any resistance. I didn't know where I was going to go, or what I was going to do, so I decided to do the one thing that I was most familiar with: traveling from place to place, and living out of a tent."
    "Earlier," she said, as she spared me a glance, "you asked me about my curse. Well, I used the Chisuiton to lock it." She chuckled humorlessly at that, and her gaze fell to the ground. "I didn't know if I could get myself to see Akane, or even if I should. Even if I had, I doubted that I would be able to express how I felt to the extent that I did — especially if she didn't desire to see me in the first place. I figured: if I couldn't apologize and place myself at her mercy, the least that I could do was suffer along with her, and I did not like being a girl at the time."
    "I take it that changed," I deduced, my tone gentle and sympathetic.
    She nodded her head almost imperceptibly. "Yeah. I fought it every step of the way, but it was inevitable that I would adapt to it. I tried to pretend that I didn't like it, but I eventually realized that it defeated the purpose, and it felt like I was cheating Akane out of the punishment that I thought I deserved." She sighed and closed her eyes. "That's when I decided to live a solitary lifestyle, because I liked having people around to impress with my skills whenever the opportunity presented itself. From what I'd last heard (at the time), Akane had become a rather bitter person, and I didn't think that I deserved to be any happier than she was."
    She opened her eyes and began to stare into the fire. "It was around that time that Ryoga began to hunt me down like he had before, only with more conviction toward killing me. Things hadn't worked out between him and Akari, and Akane had rebuffed him when he had gathered the nerve to pursue a relationship with her. He blamed the rejection on me, of course, since she obviously would have accepted him if I hadn't failed to protect her."
    "Things eventually changed for her, though," she continued, with a faraway look in her eyes. "After a few decades had gone by, science and magic had advanced to the point where she could have her leg completely restored. That had gone a long way to improve her outlook on life, and it wasn't long afterward that she opened up her own gym. I felt happy for her, but at that point I believed that making an appearance would only spoil things for her, so I didn't."
    She paused, and I could see the areas around her mouth and eyes beginning to strain. "It went on like that for a while. I hadn't expected my lifespan to be greatly extended because of the new queen, so not only had my solitary lifestyle become normal, it became all I knew. By the time anyone could actually find me, and pass along the message that Akane wanted to see me, I was very conflicted and indecisive. I wanted to see her so badly, even if she only wanted to deliver a long-overdue punishment, but I had developed a low opinion of myself and felt too ashamed to show my face to her. I mean, I was just a pathetic excuse for a woman who lived like a hermit and did nothing but feel sorry for herself."
    "A few years passed," she went on, and by the sound of her voice I could tell that her throat was beginning to be strained by emotion. "Before I could make up my mind one way or the other, Phantom began to terrorize Crystal Tokyo. Fearing for her safety, I was finally able to gather up the nerve to see her, but..." She clenched her eyes shut, and her body went tense. "I had arrived too late. She'd placed herself between Phantom and some fleeing civilians, and had bought them enough time to get away." She paused again, swallowed, and began to shake. "Before she died, she had enough time to write... on the ground... 'baka.'"
    I had half-expected her to break down and cry, but — aside from a pained expression on her face, and tears forming at the corners of her eyes — she was doing a remarkable job of suppressing the urge to do just that. I don't know if she was doing it for my sake, or if that was just the way that she was, or both, but my heart went out to her nonetheless, and I reached around her back to pull her against me without thinking about it.
    For a second, when she froze up, I worried that I had made a mistake. Much to my relief, however, she relaxed and leaned into me shortly thereafter. I guess my attempt to comfort her had been enough to derail how she had been feeling before, because — instead of carrying on — she wiped at her eyes and began to calm down, with the occasional sniffle being the only remnant of her prior state.
    I didn't say anything. We just sat here, with my arm around her, watching the area around the campfire flickering in and out of prominence right along with it. Now that the campfire was the main source of light, which dictated the condition of the lighting as far as our eyes were concerned, we couldn't see much beyond the immediate area. It was like being in a little bubble of a world, with a life of its own, which had been brought to life by the dancing flames at its heart. I found myself a little spellbound by it, and wondered if Ranma ever had the same experience, or if so much exposure to it had worn away its allure.
    Eventually, my full attention was brought back to the woman beside me, when she quietly said, "You know, at one point your mother tried to appeal to me with the promise of immortality." She chuckled lightly, with apparent humor. "It was one of the last things that she had tried, before realizing that I wouldn't be suited for the life of a sailor senshi, even if for a reason that differed from my own."
    "Anyway," she continued, a little louder and clearer than before, "despite my grief, I didn't think that I should bear my pain forever, much less pass it on to my next incarnation. That, and I didn't like the idea of living with it for so long that I became numb to it, which would render its existence and purpose meaningless." She paused and released a tired sigh. "I failed Akane twice, missing any chance of being in her life again, and she in mine. When she died, she took her feelings toward me with her; so, I felt that it would only be appropriate if I were to do the same."
    I thought that was a bit melodramatic, but I didn't think that it would be wise to say that to her. She had obviously made up her mind, so I thought it best to just accept it; that, and what my next action will have to be.
    I looked up at her and cautiously asked, "What if you could prevent those things from happening to her?"
    She frowned, then leaned away from me and turned her torso aside so she could see my face clearly. "Are you serious?"
    With an expression to match the graveness of the matter, I nodded my head and said, "Completely serious."
    I could see an assortment of emotions flash by within her eyes. These expressed themselves elsewhere in a subtle way, mostly in the form of minor facial twitches, as each emotion quickly superseded another in turn. Then, when it seemed that she could not find anything in my appearance that would belie my words, she returned her torso to its natural position and looked ahead of herself, her expression settling on one that told me that she was now deep in thought.
    After a short time had passed, she calmly asked, "If we change the past, won't that mean that there won't be a reason to go back into the past to change it? Isn't that the kind of thing you're supposed to avoid?"
    "That's right," I readily answered. "It's just a matter of figuring out a solution for it. I'm sure Sailor Pluto could think of something."
    She looked at me with a dubious expression on her face, and a hint of hope showing in her eyes. "Are you sure about that?"
    I puffed up with pride and nodded my head with confidence. "Of course! I bet it'll be a piece of cake for her."
    I wasn't sure, but I could have sworn that she had looked irritated for the briefest of instants. However, since such a reaction to my words wouldn't have made any sense, I decided to forget about it.
    She directed her attention toward the fire and once again rested her arms on her knees, and I sat by and quietly watched as she not only decided on the fate of her existence, but on a part of history's fate as well. I hadn't planned for things to go this far from the start, but I had figured that it might be necessary to involve time travel and had prepared myself accordingly. My mother will probably be upset with me because of it, if Ranma's answer required changing certain events that happened in the past, but I think she'll understand since I'm just going along with what my heart is telling me to do.
    Once she was ready to speak, she closed her eyes and softly said, "I guess this is it, then. If you can save Akane, I don't care what happens to me."
    Despite the tranquil expression on her face, I leaned over her a bit and grasped the shoulder farthest from me with one hand while I gently placed my other hand just above the elbow that was nearest to me. "Are you sure?"
    "Yeah," she replied, before opening her eyes, which revealed that they were now glistening with unshed tears. "Not everyone gets a chance to undo their mistakes. I just hope that I don't make them again."
    I squeezed her arm reassuringly. "You won't. I'll make sure of it."


Chapter 9


    Charon slowly removed the memory device from her forehead, feeling a bit overwhelmed by what she had just learned. She found it hard to believe what had become of herself, but that was mostly because she didn't want to admit that there were some aspects of herself that weren't as strong or stable as others, even as she recalled how she had begun to handle Akane's supposed death not all that long ago.
    As she stared down upon the device that lied in the palm of her open hand, she remembered that there were more important things to worry about than her personal feelings on that particular matter: such as the immediate problem that would apparently make said matter a reality, and would take place tomorrow morning.
    After giving Charon enough time to digest what had been imparted to her by the memory device, Pluto patiently asked, "Now that you have a better idea of what to expect, are you ready to get to work?"
    Charon nodded her head belatedly, before she looked up from her hand and asked, "What do I need to do?"
    "For the time being," Pluto answered, as she placed a hand upon Charon's shoulder, "I need you to guard the Door of Time while I'm gone. I have to survey a couple of things, to see whether their occurrence depends on certain events remaining the same or not. For instance: if Kasumi doesn't run that clinic, or — perhaps — doesn't even live in the area, we'll need to plan accordingly."
    Charon looked incredulous. "How do you plan for something like that?"
    "You'll see," Pluto replied, with a slight smile, as she withdrew her hand from Charon's shoulder. "When I return, I'll show you something that you may find interesting."
    Considering how she had just experienced over a day's worth of memories within the span of a few seconds, the promise of seeing another high-tech gadget made Charon perk up with interest. Normally she wouldn't be all that interested in such a thing, since said interest usually didn't extend all that much beyond a sixteen-bit video game console, but who wouldn't be curious about technology that was nearly a thousand years beyond the things that were considered cutting-edge at the present time? Heck, she already wanted to get her hands on some of those small capsules that contained fresh, already-cooked food.
    However, since there were more important things to concentrate on, she suppressed the urge to pursue the subject and nodded her head. Upon doing so, Pluto said, "I'll be back before too long," before she raised her Garnet Rod and vanished with a flash of light.
    After doing nothing but remain where she was for a time, in silence, Charon raised the memory device back into view and looked down upon it intently, before closing her hand around it once more. Thanks to it, and the person who had conveyed its contents, she now knew what not to do in the future. If ever there was a good way to not make a mistake (and repeat it, in this case), it was in knowing the nature of the mistake in advance, especially if the consequence of the mistake in question were also known.
    She squeezed the memory device meaningfully, without any real force, and looked forward to meeting the person whose memories had brought her a measure of hope and assurance for the future.

    "How can she stand this!?"
    Charon didn't know how long she had been guarding the Door of Time, and that was a part of the problem: there weren't any distinctive ways to tell how much time had passed, beyond a guess, and it was beginning to bother her. She had once thought that it would be great if she didn't have to worry about fatigue, hunger and thirst, but now she was beginning to miss such mundane distractions, partly because she could have used them to measure the passage of time.
    Instead, it was just her, the Door of Time, the surrounding mist, and the endless void beyond that. It was completely and utterly boring. She had tried to keep herself occupied, while still being able to maintain a vigil over the Door of Time, but there were only so many times that one could — for instance — count pushups tirelessly before the activity became just as monotonous as doing nothing.
    The distinct lack of noise was also bothersome, but she discovered that producing her own — in order to fill the void — was a bit strange and disconcerting to her ears. It didn't sound "right," because there was nothing for the sound to bounce off of; not even the Door of Time, much to her surprise and confusion. Which had made her wonder about its physical properties, if it could — indeed — be considered a physical object at all.
    Between the boredom, silence, static environment and lack of stimuli in general, she wondered how Pluto managed to stay sane. She did, somehow, so it was little wonder why loneliness would be someone's next primary concern: because standing guard at the Door of Time, in the fourth dimension, was... Well, lonely. It was just her and the door, and she wasn't much of a conversationalist, much less to herself or inanimate objects (and that way lied madness, anyway).
    Once again, she began to wonder when Pluto would return. What was "before too long" to someone who didn't age and seemed unphased by the passage of time in a place like the fourth dimension? She was already beginning to wish that something would happen, even if it happened to be a hostile trespasser; anything to break the tedium for at least a little while.
    As if in answer to her desire, she began to sense something coming from the Door of Time. She had yet to learn anything about it, beyond what it was used for, so she turned around and waited to see what would happen. The only thing that she was sure about, was that Pluto didn't need to use the Door of Time to enter the fourth dimension, so she doubted that what she was sensing had anything to do with her — at least as far as that was concerned.
    Within seconds the double doors of the Door of Time began to swing open, which revealed a number of unexpected sights.
    The first was the appearance of an unfamiliar sailor senshi, since she stood front and center in relation to everything else that had been revealed to her (which wasn't unexpected, given that she appeared to be the one who had pushed the doors open). Her uniform looked "regal," in that her main colors were purple and red, while the secondary color was gold. More notable, however, was the red cape trimmed with white fur, the scepter being held in her hand, and the bejeweled crown that sat upon her head.
    Behind her, and a little to the side, stood a middle-aged man. His outfit seemed reminiscent of what someone might have worn during the Medieval period of human history, and was of such a make and style that it — like the sailor senshi before him — gave the impression of nobility (or of wealth, perhaps). He wore his hair long, which was held close to his head by a golden circlet, and his beard was close-cropped except for where it tapered to a point below the chin.
    She didn't observe either of them in great detail, because it didn't take her long to notice the unmoving figures that lied about their feet. They all wore the same, white outfit, plain in overall appearance but clearly functioning to express a professional quality about its wearer. Whoever they were, they were either dead or dying, which was evidenced by the blood that seeped into their clothes and spread out across the floor. Before she returned her attention to the two people who were likely responsible for what had happened to them, she noticed an entry wound in one of their backs, where the material of their shirt — around the immediate area of a hole — had been singed.
    She didn't know what was going on, but she doubted that it was routine, so she summoned her Obsidian Oar and held it at the ready — just in case. It was then that she noticed something about the scepter in the other sailor senshi's possession, which seemed to have the same kind of teeth along its shaft as the ones on her own weapon. Inspired by that discovery, her eyes went to the man's hands next, and she saw him holding something that looked like a gun. She could only guess by its shape and the way that it was being held, but it — whatever "it" was — looked far too advanced for anything on Earth, much less when compared to the kind of clothes that its wielder happened to be wearing.
    Not knowing what else to do, beyond the obvious, she sternly demanded, "Who are you, and what are you doing here?"
    Instead of answering, the man directed his attention to one of the gem-like ornaments about his collar, which lit up upon being touched. Wary of what he might be up to, she tensed up and prepared to move if necessary. She spared the other sailor senshi a glance, and noticed that she had yet to shift any part of her body around since she had first seen her, and that something didn't look quite right about her unblinking gaze.
    When the man finally spoke, she didn't understand or recognize his language. However, it wasn't long before another voice began to speak over his, sounding much like his own, only it spoke in her own language.
    "And who might you be?" He asked of her, with an oily smile. "You do not appear to be the sailor senshi that I had been expecting."
    Something about his words and manner of speech didn't sit well with her. It didn't help that she had only just started to guard the Door of Time unofficially, either: because she hadn't been shown the ropes yet, much less who or what — if anything — to expect. She wasn't sure what to do, so she decided to take a page out of Kuno's book to buy herself some time, in the hope that she could come up with something appropriate to do instead of looking like the inexperienced first-timer that she actually was.
    "Isn't it impolite to..." She paused, when she heard her own voice being conveyed in another language, which seemed to come from the glowing gem at the man's collar. Upon noticing the man's cocked eyebrow, she pulled herself together and tried to play her role again, hoping that she hadn't already made a mistake. "Isn't it impolite to ask for someone's name before introducing yourself first?"
    The man seemed to be amused by her words as he said, "Oh, well, where are my manners, then?" He made a big production out of bowing to her, and arose from it with a broad smile on his face and a certain gleam in his eyes. "I am the fourth in line to inherit the throne of the Cepheid Kingdom, but with this," he made a sweeping gesture with his free hand, indicating the Door of Time, "I'll be sure to become the next king. So," his smile became broader still, "I think it's only appropriate to use 'my lord' when addressing me, don't you think?"
    "...You've got to be kidding me," she replied, with a deadpan expression on her face. It was just her luck that something like this would happen to her, especially since she had been wanting something to happen only a moment ago. Why hadn't she ever learned to not tempt fate?
    "My word," the man said, who affected a gasp and pretended to be affronted. "How rude. And after I had to introduce myself according to your own custom."
    She found the self-satisfied smile that followed his words to be quite insufferable, and she ground her teeth together as she kept herself in check, lest she acted in haste and found herself at a disadvantage — or worse. Instead, she stared daggers at him while she adjusted how she held her Obsidian Oar, in preparation for the less verbal confrontation that appeared to be imminent.
    "No matter," the man casually continued, before he pointed at her and firmly stated, "Cepheus, subdue her; terminate, if necessary."
    Said sailor senshi began to move for the first time, who focused her gaze upon Charon as she raised her scepter and pointed it in her direction. Then, without any energy put into her words, she flatly stated, "Royal Decree: Seal."
    Having expected an attack to issue forth from the scepter, Charon leapt to the side, away from the direction that it had been pointed. However, much to her confusion, nothing seemed to happen. She didn't understand the nature of the other sailor senshi's attack until it was too late, when a golden ring of energy, with varied-colored orbs circuiting along it, descended from above and surrounded her. It quickly converged on her, fading into her body, and she suddenly felt as if she had been cut off from something.
    The would-be king chuckled with delight as he stepped across the Door of Time's threshold, into the fourth dimension proper, and the other sailor senshi followed him without a word or a change in expression instead of continuing with her prior order. When he ceased his advance, thus maintaining a safe distance between Charon and himself, he said, "I must say: with this much fortune, it must be a sign that I was meant for this undertaking. I had been expecting a sailor senshi by the designation of Pluto, whose records had established a challenging adversary within my mind, yet what stands before me is anything but."
    Charon seethed at that and brandished her weapon threateningly, now completely fed up with the whole affair. "Yeah? Well, that just goes to show what you know, you pompous bastard."
    "Oh?" Came the man's reply, as he nonchalantly raised his gun and fired it.
    Thanks to the position granted by the brandishing of her Obsidian Oar, Charon had enough time to intercept the bright projectile that had suddenly been shot at her, which she managed to deflect with the flat of its blade. It had been a close thing, but she wasn't about to admit that, much less aloud.
    "You've got good reflexes, at any rate," the man said dismissively, as he peered down the barrel of his gun. "Now, will you submit yourself to my authority, or do you intend to oppose me?"
    "What do you think?" Charon growled out, with evident distaste, as she readied herself for a battle. "As if I'd want anything to do with you."
    "That's rather unfortunate," the man replied disingenuously, with an accompanying shake of his head, before his body language changed completely and his expression hardened to match it. "Cepheus? Terminate."
    The sailor senshi in question raised her free hand above her head and — in the same manner as before — said, "Supreme Justice: Guillotine," before she brought her hand down in a chopping motion.
    If the attack hadn't parted the mist on its way over to her, Charon wouldn't have seen it coming and avoided it in time. Not only because the attack was thin and hard to see when looking upon it head-on, but because it had no distinctive color and there wasn't much in the current environment that would appear distorted when seeing them through it (which she had noticed when it had passed her by).
    Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the gun being trained on her, so she kept herself in motion and tried to maneuver herself into a more advantageous position. The last thing that she wanted was to have one of them at her back, where she couldn't see them. Since the gun could cover a distance at a much faster rate than Cepheus' nigh-invisible attack, she thought it best to put the other sailor senshi between them, with the assumption that the man would hesitate to fire if he risked shooting his partner. That, and she wasn't sure if she could close the distance between him and herself while avoiding the oncoming "bullets" on top of the sailor senshi's attack.
    Her plan seemed to work, because the gun ceased firing when she got into position and began to engage Cepheus in close-ranged combat. Her Obsidian Oar gave her a distinct advantage against the other sailor senshi, though she reserved the lethal edge of her blade because she was under the impression that her opponent was being controlled, rather than a willing participant. That, and she wasn't exactly keen about killing someone on general principle, and she had a convenient excuse to avoid it despite the circumstances.
    Unfortunately, despite Cepheus' apparent lethargy of before, she was very quick on her feet once she got going, and was skilled enough with her scepter to fend off her attacks with the Obsidian Oar. Then she lost what little advantage that she had altogether, and was put on the ropes, when the other sailor senshi was ordered to replace her scepter with a longsword. It seemed to be her weapon of choice, because she was very skilled with it, to the point where Charon was no longer confident about going back on the offensive. Even when she had tried to disarm her, by catching the blade with the teeth of her Obsidian Oar, she had nearly been disarmed herself.
    It quickly got to the point where she needed to use her own abilities as a sailor senshi to save herself, which she had reserved up until that point because she was pretty sure that her opposition was aware of the ones that they all had, which would likely mitigate — if not nullify — any tactical advantage that she might have otherwise gained from them. Plus, if she used them, then the other sailor senshi might decide to start using them as well, and by now she was absolutely convinced that said sailor senshi would be better skilled at their use than she was.
    However, when she tried to teleport, nothing happened. Much to her alarm and dismay, when she tried to take flight, she discovered that the initial problem wasn't an isolated one. It was then that she realized what that first attack had done to her, because she couldn't access her unique abilities either, much less summon something like the memory device into her hand. She had felt fairly confident about her chances of winning so long as she had the abilities as a sailor senshi held back in reserve, until such a time as she could use any one of them without it being expected, but now...
    She had other options, of course, but it was quite draining to punch or kick as fast as she could, especially if it needed to be done multiple times in quick succession. The Mōko Takabisha could also be quite draining, depending on her level of confidence, but it could also prove ineffective if said confidence happened to be lacking at the time. In either case, her preferred method was to reserve her energy as much as possible while fighting, unless she felt that she had no better choice, because she never knew when she might need her energy later.
    In this case, for instance, she would need to use just enough energy to defeat one of her opponents, but not use so much that she would be at the mercy of the other afterward. Normally she would consider using the Hiryū Shōten Ha, and use the opponent's energy against them, but she would forfeit the reason for why she wasn't currently getting shot at if she committed to it. Plus, she would increase the risk of getting herself shot: because the technique required the use of a predictable pattern, which would be fairly easy for someone with a gun to spot if they were trying to line up their shot ahead of where the target would go.
    She was just beginning to consider doing something desperate when her opponent suddenly jerked to a stop and looked over her own shoulder. When she looked around the other sailor senshi's stilled body, a great sense of relief washed over her at the sight of Pluto, who stood over the collapsed form of the man. It was short-lived, however, because Cepheus was soon back in motion, only this time her target was not her. Now she was racing toward the sailor senshi of time, who was in the process of kneeling and reaching out with her hand, toward the man's head.
    There wasn't much time for thought, so — without thinking — she put a spin on her Obsidian Oar when she threw it at the back of Cepheus' legs, with the intention of tripping her up. It worked, for a second, but she disappeared before she could hit the ground, and reappeared right behind Pluto. At the moment that she had raised her sword overhead, with the intent of performing a downward strike upon Pluto's unguarded back, the endangered sailor senshi in question had removed the man's circlet from his head.
    When Cepheus lowered her sword to her side, rather than follow through with her attack, it took Charon a moment to puzzle out why. The answer dawned on her when Pluto casually stood up and placed the circlet upon her own head, then turned toward the other sailor senshi and appeared to order her into dismissing her sword, since she did just that. It seemed to confirm what she had suspected before, about Cepheus being controlled, only now she knew how it had been done.
    Since she couldn't summon her Obsidian Oar back into her possession, she went to retrieve it the old-fashioned way. Along the way, she was aware of Pluto speaking to Cepheus, who replied in turn, but she still couldn't make out what they were saying from where she was. By the time she reached them, Pluto had secured the man with an advanced-looking pair of handcuffs, and had just finished ordering Cepheus to transfer him to their spaceship and confine him there until further notice.
    Pluto watched her leave with the unconscious man in tow for a second, with a frown, before she turned her attention to Charon and smiled at her wryly. "I've only been gone for three days, and you're already getting yourself into trouble. What am I going to do with you?"
    "I had things under control," Charon grumbled half-heartedly, with a pout, as she averted her gaze away from any visually-expressed judgement that might have been awaiting her otherwise.
    Pluto shook her head at that. "You know that's not true. If it makes you feel any better, though, this was as much my fault as it was fate's. This is still new to you, there's a lot for you to learn even before you have to decide on whether to take on any kind of official responsibility in the future or not, and I could have prioritized that education." She sighed. "I chose not to do it that way: because I didn't want you to get the impression that I was more focused on subtly encouraging your role as a sailor senshi, instead of what mattered to you."
    Charon was touched by that, and turned to regard her companion with the intent of saying something to that effect, but she didn't know how to say it. She'd never been good with expressing herself when it came to things of this particular nature, or in choosing the right words — and the way in which to phrase them — during such occasions, so she ended up looking down in embarrassment as she allowed a silence to descend upon them.
    Unbeknownst to her, Pluto had seen and understood the look in her eyes before she had turned them away again, so words hadn't really been necessary. The sailor senshi of time had also been reminded that her current behavior was a large part of the reason for why her future had turned out the way that it had, and was determined to do something about it over the course of their time together.
    Pluto thought that it would be wise to approach that task slowly, since she could, so — for now — she decided to change the subject. And, with that decision made, she placed her hand on Ranma's shoulder and softly said, "Well, we still have some unfinished business to take care of here, so let's deal with that before we get back to our original plans, okay?"
    "Sure," Charon readily agreed, since that sounded perfectly understandable and reasonable, as well as a great deal more comfortable than the last subject.


Chapter 10


    As Charon was led by Pluto down the long, column-lined passageway on the other side of the Door of Time, she wondered about many things. Where were they, and where were they going? What were they going to do about the dead people behind them? When were her abilities going to be unsealed? Why had Pluto merely knocked out the guy who had been controlling Cepheus, instead of killing him? And — for that matter — why was she wearing the circlet that seemed to control the other sailor senshi?
    As if reading her mind, Pluto spoke up and said, "I imagine you're wondering about the situation, and what's going on."
    "Well, yeah..." She replied, somewhat sarcastically.
    Pluto chuckled lightly at her response. "Well, to help you understand a few things, I'll need to give you a little history lesson first."
    They came to a branch in their path, where they could either continue ahead or turn right, and Pluto chose the latter. It was a corridor, much the same as anything else that Charon had seen of the place so far, except that there appeared to be a few doors evenly spaced across either side of its length.
    "Right now," Pluto began, without a change in her stride or turning her attention away from what was ahead of them, "we're currently on the Earth's moon, in the palace that was once the capital of the former Moon Kingdom."
    Charon blinked her eyes in confusion, since she had expected something different, something more... alien. "We're on the moon? And when was there ever a Moon Kingdom?"
    "The Moon Kingdom existed a long time ago," Pluto replied, who didn't seem to mind the interruption. "With the exception of the Earth, which had been ruled by the Golden Kingdom at the time, the Moon Kingdom's domain had extended throughout the solar system. They had both fallen, of course, and much about them had either been completely destroyed or lost to time."
    "That had once included this palace," she went on. "However, during Sailor Moon's battle with Metallia, she had unwittingly restored it with the power of the Silver Moon Crystal. She didn't want to revive the Moon Kingdom, or live here, so it had been abandoned. Since its security system had also been fully restored, it seemed fine to leave this place unattended."
    "Apparently not," Charon quipped, as she started to put some of the pieces of the puzzle together. "So, basically, you're saying that the Door of Time was compromised because this place was rebuilt and failed to keep people out of it?"
    "Pretty much," Pluto agreed.
    They came upon another intersection, except that this one offered three choices instead of two, with the way ahead leading to a stairway that granted access to the floor above them. Pluto chose to go right once again, which happened to be yet another corridor.
    "Where we're at right now," she began to explain, "which is several levels below the lunar surface, had remained largely intact after the palace had been destroyed. Before the palace had been restored, there had been no conventional way to get here, so I hadn't been too concerned about anyone discovering it and finding their way inside, much less figuring out how to access the Door of Time."
    "I see," Charon replied, as she glanced at her Obsidian Oar thoughtfully. "So, our tools aren't unique to us as sailor senshi?"
    "That's right," Pluto confirmed. "The scepter that Cepheus had used was not a part of her usual inventory, which means that it must have been made with the information that can be found in the main computer here."
    Since Charon had assumed that Pluto had arrived on the scene shortly before she had knocked out the man from the Cepheid Kingdom, after Cepheus had traded in her scepter for the sword, she stared at her suspiciously and responded in an accusatory tone. "Just how long had you been hiding and watching before you decided to make an appearance?"
    Pluto stopped in front of a large, ornate door, then turned to face her with one of her eyebrows cocked. "I went to investigate the situation as soon as I felt the Door of Time being unlocked. I figured that it wouldn't hurt to see how you handled things on your own, since I knew how to end the fight quickly so long as I had the element of surprise."
    Charon was a little mollified by that, but disappointed with herself nonetheless. "Still, I would have preferred it if I had won."
    Pluto shook her head with some exasperation. "Like I said: you can hardly be faulted for your performance." To try and assuage Charon's feelings on the matter, she soothingly added, "Besides, it was fortunate that they had come when they did: because they had been expecting me, not you. It may have even been better this way than if we had both been there upon their arrival."
    "If you say so," Charon finally relented, with a slight smile.
    Pluto returned the smile before she brought her attention back to the door, which she opened and stepped through without ceremony. Charon followed after her, but paused upon entering the room while her companion continued onward. What she saw would have reminded her of one of those mission control centers, had she had time to recall something that she had only seen once before (and briefly, at that), only far more advanced-looking.
    At the other end of the room, and dominating the majority of the wall there, was what appeared to be a very large (but currently inactive) screen. Between it and her were several rows worth of workstations, each with computer terminals built into them. The walls to either side of her were like the workstations, except continuous along each wall and having many more monitors above them.
    Once she'd seen enough of what there was to see, she returned her attention to Pluto, who had seated herself at the nearest workstation. She went over to her to see what she was doing, as she worked at the computer terminal, but she didn't recognize or understand anything that was being displayed on the screen.
    She was just about to ask her what she was doing, out of curiosity, when her companion chose that time to say, "Now, as for the Cepheid Kingdom: it's been around for a while, and even predates the Moon and Golden kingdoms by some time. Back then, we had a neutral relationship with them. Mostly, it was because of the great distance between us, but our relatively small size and youth didn't draw much attention. The only thing that made this solar system worthy of any outside interest was the power of the Silver Moon Crystal, and a few thwarted incursions by seemingly superior nations — and no acts of aggression on our part — all but ensured a neutral or better standing with us."
    "Anyway," she went on, as she continued to work at the computer terminal, "Cepheus had been under the control of its royalty even in those days, but that hadn't always been the case. She had once ruled over their entire homeworld, in a manner not so unlike that of a tyrant. However, when she had begun to recognize the advancement of technology as a threat to her position, the atrocities that she had committed — in an attempt to strip away centuries of scientific advancement — had ensured a rather vindictive and ironic fate for her."
    She stilled her hands, and looked up at Charon with a serious expression on her face. "So, when you see this circlet, the last thing that you should feel for her is sympathy. The people of the Cepheid Kingdom still remember what she had done to their ancestors, and still bear some of the scars from that time, so they would not have been very happy with us if we had killed her."
    Charon was too taken aback to speak, so she didn't. She had been under the impression that sailor senshi were supposed to be protectors and saviors, not villains or monsters. She wondered what kind of sailor senshi that made her, then, since she'd already wished trouble upon herself for the sake of relieving boredom.
    As Pluto returned her attention to the computer, and put her hands back to work, she said, "Since her enslavement, Cepheus has been reserved as a sort of symbol for the king's good will, especially once their technology had advanced to the point where her offensive capabilities had been made redundant. Between that, and wanting to expose her status to as many people as possible, it became a tradition to include her on diplomatic missions."
    Charon's brow furrowed as she puzzled out what she was being told. "Wait... Since she's here, you're saying that they hadn't come here to use the Door of Time?"
    Pluto nodded her head, as she continued to operate the computer. "We'll know for sure in a minute, but I doubt that they had learned about the Door of Time prior to their arrival. That, and most of the wounds inflicted upon the dead had come from either the back or the side, which suggests that they may have played out their roles under duress and hadn't been needed after fulfilling them."
    Charon nodded her head at that, with a grim expression on her face. "So, what are we going to do with that guy?"
    "He knows things that he shouldn't," she replied evenly. "Under normal circumstances he would have already been dead, but being a royal from Cepheid complicates matters. He had been sent here with Cepheus for a reason; depending on what that is, and what kind of evidence we find for his activities, it would be best to leave his fate in the hands of his own people."
    "At the very least," she went on, "we will have to erase all memory of his and her time here. I dare do no more than that: because I haven't kept up with recent events in the Cepheid Kingdom, to the extent that I'm unsure of what kind of actions I can take without making the Earth an innocent target of a multi-stellar kingdom's hostile response."
    Charon locked onto one particular piece of information and warily asked, "You can do that? Erase memories, I mean?"
    Pluto nodded her head absently in response and casually said, "Erase, hide, manipulate, invent; there's little that can't be done, really."
    "I see..." Charon replied, clearly unsettled by that information.
    Pluto smiled crookedly, with some amusement, and tried to put her mind at ease. "I wouldn't worry about it. Such practices aren't the sort of thing employed lightly, much less made available outside of very specific situations. More often than not, they are only applied upon request, or with permission."
    Charon had just begun to wonder who would want their mind messed with, and why, when Pluto perked up and said, "Ah, now this looks promising."
    As soon as she had finished saying that, most of the user interface was lost to a video that began to display a spaceship making a landing on the lunar surface. Charon had never seen anything like it before, and quickly forgot about the last subject, as well as any questions pertaining to it.
    Several smaller windows were also on the screen, which displayed the same scene from multiple angles, and Charon watched as she saw several figures disembark from the vessel. She recognized all of them easily enough, seeing as none seemed to be wearing anything different — or extra — in order to leave the environment of their ship. Audio was also included with the video, and it somehow managed to pick up what was being spoken by them despite their current location. Not that it really mattered to her, since she couldn't understand a word being said anyway.
    When the figures in the video had entered the palace, Pluto paused it and sounded rather relieved as she leaned into the back of her chair said, "This is exactly what we needed. The security footage could have been deleted easily enough, but all of it was left intact. It seems that the concern just expressed by some of the crew — regarding their actions — is an indication of why."
    "Did they mention what they were supposed to be doing?" Charon inquired, not surprised that Pluto could understand their language.
    Pluto shook her head, before she sat up and began to operate the computer once again, which saw a return of the text and symbols that Charon didn't understand. "Not yet. Rather than look through all of the security footage to find out, though, I'm going to revive someone who can do that for us in a fraction of a second."
    Charon blinked her eyes incredulously and asked, "Revive? Who?"
    Pluto chuckled lightly and said, "You'll see."
    Since there was nothing to see as of yet, and that continued to be the case a minute or so later, Charon found herself turning her attention elsewhere and wandering away aimlessly. She knew better than to touch anything, so she ended up pursuing more of a mental activity than a physical one, now that she had another chance to reflect on recent events.
    Frankly, she felt rather uncertain (not scared, of course) about where her life was headed. While it was great that she would get a chance to change her fate from the one that she had seen through another's eyes, she had to wonder what kind of person she would become instead. Not only was it due to her current body feeling more natural than what she actually considered to be her natural body, but she suspected that she would be spending a lot of her time as a girl for the foreseeable future, in order to ensure that the changes to said future wouldn't cause any of the major consequences that one could expect from a poorly-managed application of time travel.
    No matter what might happen, would it be alright so long as she was able to express how she truly felt about Akane? She didn't know. What if she could do that, after doing everything that needed to be done to change their respective futures, and she was rejected? Would it be alright — or wise — to share with Akane the fact that she was a sailor senshi, or would she end up living a double life, spending an inordinate amount of time away while hardly any time at all passed by for her prospective wife?
    In a way, the big question mark that loomed ahead of her was more worthy of apprehension than the future that she had been made aware of. For all that she knew, things could change for the worse for either herself or Akane, rather than for the better. Also, while she didn't want to admit it, she was worried about the kind of person that she might become. Her future self might very well come to accept or like herself when all was said and done, but the thought of becoming that person — at that exact moment — made her... uneasy.
    It was all up in the air and undecided, of course, but that was a part of the problem: because — deep down — there was a lot of uncertainty about what she wanted to do with herself. She could assert whatever she thought she wanted, but she was well aware that life wasn't always so easy or forgiving, and she had to deal with things that most normal people would probably never imagine being a possible part of their lives.
    Immortality? Reincarnation? Time travel? A sex-changing curse? Extrastellar civilizations? Being a sailor senshi? Those were just some of the more notable things that either have, might or will affect the course of her life, as well as what kind of person she would become. Despite being more experienced than most of humanity when it came to such things, she still had next to no idea about how events might play out for her, regardless of whatever notion or expectation that she held for her future.
    She was pulled away from her thoughts when she heard a new voice suddenly say, "It has been a very long time, Sailor Pluto."
    When she sought out its source, what she found looked like a ghost, since she could see through it despite the fairly strong glow that it appeared to be emitting. Whatever it was, it assumed the form of a tall, beautiful woman, who had her long, silver-colored hair done up in a familiar hairstyle, and wore a resplendent yet simple white gown.
    Unable to contain her incredulity, she found herself blurting out, "Did you just revive a ghost?"
    "...Of sorts," Pluto replied facetiously.
    Regardless of whether the apparition was a ghost or not, she had apparently caught her attention, who had to turn away from the still-seated Pluto in order to regard her. Now that she could see it, the woman had a rather pleasant and matronly visage, and it also occurred to her why she had seemed familiar: because she looked a lot like the princess' mother.
    The woman's eyes seemed to light up when they came upon her Obsidian Oar, and she appeared to be both happy and relieved when she directed her attention to its owner and cordially said, "Sailor Charon; words cannot convey how delighted I am to see you."
    Seeing the confused look on her fellow sailor senshi's face, Pluto spoke up and casually supplied, "This is Queen Serenity: founder of the Moon Kingdom, creator of the Door of Time, our tools and castles, and the one who had charged me with guarding the aforementioned Door of Time."
    Charon looked duly surprised and impressed by that, before her expression suddenly turned quizzical. "Wait, castles? Do I have a castle?"
    "Did I forget to mention that?" Came Pluto's not-so-innocent reply.
    Appearing to understand what their words meant, Serenity returned her attention to Pluto and asked, "Oh, is this a recent development?"
    "It is," Pluto replied, with a nod of her head. "And before you get ahead of yourself: no, she's not acting as my partner. Circumstances simply required her to be a sailor senshi, and for us to work together."
    She proceeded to enlighten her, regarding the situation with Charon, with said sailor senshi pitching in every now and again. Together, they covered Chibi-Usa's memories, what awaited Charon at home, and what they planned to do about it.
    When they were finished, Serenity — who had simply listened to them in the meantime — nodded her head in understanding and said, "I see," before she turned a sympathetic eye toward Charon and asked, "How are you holding up? The fourth dimension hasn't been too rough on you, has it?"
    "Not really..." Charon replied awkwardly, somewhat embarrassed by the kind of attention that she was receiving. Wanting to change the subject, she added, "But, um, is it okay for us to do this? I kinda thought, well..."
    Serenity smiled gently and picked up where the redhead had left off. "That you're supposed to prevent people from traveling through time, instead of traveling through time yourselves?" After receiving the expected nod, she said, "While I prefer the good-hearted over the bad, even more do I prefer the latter over those who have no heart at all. I chose Pluto to guard the Door of Time because she had a heart that I could trust, not because I wanted her to shut it out."
    Pluto chose that time to cough and rise to her feet. "Well, I think I'll get the ship ready for departure." She looked at Serenity pointedly and asked, "How useful will that security footage be for our case?"
    "It leaves practically nothing to doubt about that man's wrongdoing," Serenity stated matter-of-factly. "It wasn't long after they had hacked into my memory, where they had discovered everything pertaining to the Door of Time, that the crew had suspected their future demise and acted accordingly. Not only did they add the Door of Time to the security system, so their murder could be recorded when the scepter proved to be functional, but they had also managed to transfer some of the security logs from their own spaceship."
    "That will certainly make things easier for us," Pluto agreed, thinking that it had been a good thing when their uninvited guests had blocked all of the out-going conveyances that came from the palace, in order to prevent any alerts from being sent out to a potential response force. If they hadn't done that, knowledge of the Door of Time may have already been making its way across space, as a part of the warning message meant for their king. Instead, all they could do was leave something behind and hope that the right people would find it.
    "Have you already edited out all of the sensitive content?" Pluto queried further.
    Serenity nodded her head. "Some of our evidence had to be discarded, as a result, but nothing of great significance."
    "Good," Pluto replied, as she turned to leave. "I'll be on my way, then."
    "Hold on," Charon finally spoke up, who was unsure of what she was supposed to do. "Am I going with you, or not?"
    Pluto paused and turned to regard her with a raised eyebrow before she patiently asked, "Do you think you can handle living in a spaceship for several months?"
    Charon wanted to say, "of course," but under the more mature woman's gaze such hot air could only find its outlet in a sigh. "Probably not."
    "Don't worry," Pluto tried to reassure her, "you'll be in good hands while I'm gone."
    It looked — to Charon — as if she might say something more, but it seemed that she had changed her mind. Instead, she gave a more proper goodbye than the last one before she took her leave.
    "Did I embarrass her?" Serenity wondered to herself, since the person in question had expressed a desire to leave after what she had said in answer to Charon's question, regarding time travel. It saddened her that she couldn't tell, because they had been apart for so long.
    An awkward silence fell upon the room, as both Charon and Serenity wondered how to proceed with the other (though for different reasons). Since the former of the two was less inclined to accept inaction under such circumstances, she was the first to break the silence, even if it was just for the sake of breaking it.
    "So," she began tentatively, "are you a ghost, or what?"
    It wasn't until it was already out of her mouth that she realized how that sounded, which made her wince internally, but the object of her question seemed to take it in stride when she made her reply.
    "A living memory would probably sum up what I am best," Serenity said, with an expression on her face that Charon couldn't read. "Technically-speaking, however, I am simply data in a computer being projected as a three-dimensional image, given a voice that isn't issued from an independent source."
    "Oh," Charon voiced, as if she understood, when — in reality — she didn't. Well, she did, but she had to wonder if she were reading into her words too much: she made it sound like she was both a ghost and a machine, rather than just some advanced form of the latter.
    If not for the subject matter, things might have gone silent between them again. However, with memories and ghosts on her mind, she was reminded of an issue that had yet to be addressed (as far as she could tell).
    "Say," she began, trying to sound as unperturbed about the subject as she could, "what are we going to do about those guys who had been killed?"
    Serenity gestured toward the large screen, which came to life and displayed the area in front of the Door of Time. It revealed a distinct lack of corpses, or of anything that might have suggested what had been present there only a short time ago. "That has already been seen to. They were placed into special capsules that will keep them preserved during the trip back home, and then transferred to the ship."
    "...I see," Charon replied, a bit overwhelmed by how convenient technology could be. While it could certainly be useful and interesting, she couldn't help thinking about how easily it might mess with someone's mind, and — thanks to Pluto — in what ways it could. She'd already had more than enough experience with that sort of thing in general, involving shampoo and shiatsu, shiatsu by itself, pills, various foods, a fishing rod, jewelry, a virus, oni, flowers, "glasses" and eggs (among other things), so she had an understandable aversion to exposing herself to more things of that nature. That wasn't to say that it would happen, but she was more "comfortable" with what she knew best, and she knew magic and martial arts better than she did advanced technology.
    Serenity was unaware of such thoughts when she saw the expression on her face, so it was with some amusement that she said, "You'll get used to it."
    Charon turned her head away and mumbled, "I don't know if I want to."
    During the silence that followed that statement, Serenity studied Charon carefully, wondering what kind of action to take, or if any particular action should be taken at all. Eventually, however, she was able to make a decision. It hadn't been an easy one to make, due to a conflict of interests, but she felt the need to be selfish one more time in her life (or what remained of it, anyway).
    "Can you promise me one thing?" She requested softly, which sounded louder than it was due to the stretch of silence that had preceded it.
    Charon looked at her a bit warily, at first, until she caught on to the mood and decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. "What?"
    Serenity gazed into her eyes, with barely-checked emotion behind her own, as she said, "When you have finished changing your future, come and see me... alone. There is a certain matter that I wish to talk to you about."
    "Why can't we talk about it now?" Charon asked, who was confused by such a request.
    Serenity smiled wanly in response. "You're more likely to understand the why of it after being given enough time. Do you understand?"
    Nonplussed, Charon shrugged her shoulders and said, "I guess?"
    After noticing the expectant look on Serenity's face, she awkwardly added, "If you just want to tell me something... I suppose I could listen."
    "Thank you," Serenity replied, with a smile of relief. "It means a lot to me."
    Charon averted her gaze and scratched at the side of her face. "So, um, what now?"
    Serenity considered her question for a moment before an idea occurred to her. "Would you like to see your castle?"
    With a sidelong glance, Charon asked, "You're not trying to get me sold on the idea of being a sailor senshi, are you? Just so you know: I'm totally not into the whole princess thing. Like, seriously."
    "Not at all," Serenity replied, with notable amusement. "You can use it even if that's the only reason for why you become a sailor senshi."
    Charon regarded her with a dubious expression on her face. "Are you serious? You'd give me a castle, just like that?"
    Serenity smiled warmly and nodded her head. "It wasn't what I had originally intended for it, to be honest. However, under the circumstances, I think I can make an exception."
    Charon didn't really understand the reason for the charity, so she just went along with it and asked, "So, where is it?"
    "In orbit around Charon," Serenity replied matter-of-factly.
    "And just how am I supposed to get there?" Charon inquired, with a slight frown. "Don't tell me you have a spaceship or some kind of teleportation thing conveniently lying around."
    Serenity chuckled lightly at that and said, "Okay, I won't. Rather, I was going to suggest we wait for Sailor Cepheus to leave the solar system. By then the seal on your powers will be lifted, because she has to be within a certain range for it to be enforced, and you'll be able to teleport there."
    Relieved to hear that her powers would return, even though she had no intention of making a living with them, she asked, "Okay, so what do we do until then?"
    Serenity looked up thoughtfully and wondered aloud, "Yes, what could we do until then?" An idea seemed to come to her a few seconds later, and she began to smile conspiratorially. "I know: I could tell you what Sailor Pluto was like when she was a child. I can even show you my memories on the main screen."
    Despite herself, Charon found her interest piqued. "Go on..."


Chapter 11


    After many years of training, education, collecting data, memorization and the application thereof to change her future, Charon had almost forgotten about her promise to Serenity. If said person's reincarnated daughter hadn't referred to her while she had been performing her penultimate task, she may very well have forgotten all about it.
    While she still had one more task to perform, before her future could truly be set on a new path, she felt that it would be best to see Serenity now, rather than after however long it would take to ensure that the resulting changes wouldn't endanger the universe. Besides, Serenity had made it sound like her age had been the main issue, and she was pretty sure that she was as old as her parents now, if not older.
    She wasn't sure how old she was, exactly, because her focus had been on other things. However, keeping track of her age wouldn't have been an easy task even if she had been of a mind to do it, since she had spent so much of her time in the fourth dimension. Of course, seeing as how becoming a sailor senshi had ensured that she wouldn't die from aging, and that her appearance — in that regard — wouldn't change once her body had finished growing, it seemed rather pointless to keep track of something that had a nigh-unlimited potential.
    Since Pluto might have raised a question if she had entered the palace on the moon from the Door of Time, and Serenity had requested that she be alone, she had opted to teleport to the moon from her castle. Seeing as it wasn't all that unusual for her to want some alone-time at said castle, for one reason or another (with most changing with the passage of time), it meant that she could avoid lying to a friend. After all, considering how the last several months had been spent acting as her other self without a break, with Neo-Queen Serenity hounding her during the better part of that time, she really could use a break. All she had to do was leave out exactly what she would do during said break, and she had been good to go.
    After she entered the entrance hall from the main doorway, she paused and looked around, as she tried to recall her experience there from so long ago. Back then, she'd only just awakened to her nature as a sailor senshi, and the circumstances had more or less required her to be babysat by the "person" that she had come to see. While Pluto had gone to handle the matter with the Cepheid Kingdom, the "person" in question had taught her how to use some of the tools and technology that she would no doubt need for the work ahead of her, with everything of relevance provided in her native language so she wouldn't need to learn a new language on top of everything else.
    The technology that she had utilized the most, among the ones that she had learned how to use, had involved the use of clairvoyance and clairaudience. It had allowed Pluto and herself to see and hear her other self from multiple angles without any physical object being present at any of the points of perspective, which had made it possible for them to capture everything that the subject in question had done for hundreds of years without her becoming aware of their activity.
    She imagined that Serenity was seeing and hearing her with the aforementioned technology at that very moment, but she'd long gotten accustomed to the idea that she couldn't count on having any privacy in the third dimension at any given moment (partly because she'd already had issues with trying to maintain some modicum amount of privacy before she had ever discovered the fourth dimension). Besides which, it wasn't like Serenity had much of a choice in the matter, being that she was limited to the functions made available by the computer that housed her "self."
    She was just beginning to wonder where she was expected to go, if anywhere, when Serenity appeared in front of her after the split second that it had taken for her image to stabilize. She was smiling, but Charon could tell that it was — for whatever reason — a tentative one.
    Serenity turned aside and made a gesture toward the doorway that granted access to the hallway. "This way, please."
    Charon saw no reason not to, so she shrugged her mental shoulders and decided to follow after her, who was already putting some distance between them. She was led directly to the throne room, but they didn't stop their progress until they had reached the dais at the other end of it.
    At that point, Serenity motioned toward the pair of thrones on the dais and said, "You might want to be sitting down for this."
    Charon cocked an eyebrow at that, and began to wonder what she might be required to sit down for despite her current age and the experiences that she had accumulated under her belt thus far. It had been curious enough — but understandable — having to wait until she was old enough to hear something, due to either a lack of maturity or experience (or both), but now it was beginning to sound like something rather serious awaited her, possibly bad.
    She glanced over at the two thrones, and considered her choices. The idea of sitting on either one of them, especially the one that Serenity had once used, was a bit of an uncomfortable one. A remnant of her youth told her that she could handle whatever was going to be said, and that sitting down for it would be unnecessary, but she'd learned a long time ago to have more trust in the words of her elders (at least as far as Pluto and those associated with her were concerned).
    So, she decided to sit on the throne that had likely been meant for the princess' use. Once she had gotten herself comfortable, she cleared her throat and calmly asked, "Okay, so what did I have to wait until now to hear?"
    Serenity didn't respond immediately, as she stared into the distance. However, it wasn't long before she regarded Charon levelly and answered with a question of her own. "You don't know much about me, do you?"
    "Not really," Charon replied honestly, who didn't know what else to say in reply to that. "Setsuna hasn't said much about her past, I didn't want to pry, and I don't believe that you ever elected to say anything about yourself while I had been under your care."
    Serenity nodded her head. "Well, before I address the reason for why I asked you to come here, I should provide a little context first."
    "To begin with," she said, as a large video screen appeared a fair distance above her head, which displayed an image of a galaxy, "I'm not from this galaxy." A second video screen appeared, next to the other, which showed the first galaxy in the process of colliding with another, larger one, though neither had retained a shape — by that point — that Charon normally expected of galaxies. "Mine was absorbed by this one, what is known to you as 'The Milky Way.'"
    Charon leaned forward in her seat. While she didn't know where the former queen intended to go with this information, she was nonetheless intrigued by the scale of it, and the implication that the woman before her was old enough to predate the galaxy as it was currently known.
    Next, the two video screens were replaced by a half dozen others, with each being only half of the size. Each displayed a number of battles from various perspectives, though most of them were videos of a video, as opposed to seeing the events where and when they had taken place. She saw alien worlds, alien races, alien nations, alien technology, and lots of alien spaceships fighting each other in space, or exchanging fire with surface-to-space ordnance. The action and resulting destruction were out of this world, and not just because that was literally the case.
    It was such a transfixing sight that she hadn't realized the passage of time, so she found herself being a little startled by the sudden return of Serenity's voice. "Back then, each galaxy had its fair share of star-faring entities, with their territories clearly marked and personal resources accounted for within them. However, with the collision and merging of the two galaxies, territory crossed into territory, their contents were cast into disarray, various changes in climates made a number of places uninhabitable and caused a significant loss of resources, and what resulted from those occurrences often became a matter of contention."
    "As you can imagine," she continued, as she indicated the video screens above her, "it was a cause for much conflict, over a very long period of time. I had grown sick of it long before things had settled down, so I had sought a place to wait it out, where I wouldn't be disturbed. I moved from place to place for a while, before I decided upon this freshly-born solar system. Here I slept, guarding its development when necessary, until such a time that a planet provided a means to produce a race that was much like my own in appearance."
    Charon sat up straight upon hearing that last part, and it was with evident disbelief in her voice that she interjected with, "You're not suggesting what I think you are, are you...?"
    "Perhaps," Serenity replied, with a small, enigmatic smile.
    Charon leaned into the back of the throne, stunned. It had been one thing with her age, and seeing the epic space battles, but the former queen had really taken the cake regarding whatever role that she had played in the development of her own species. However, if that was what she had wanted to tell her, then what reason would she have for doing so, and why now?
    "But that's not what I wanted to tell you," Serenity continued, due to what was revealed by the expression on Charon's face. "That was just a really condensed version of the events that explain my desire to build a peaceful kingdom, and how that led up to this..."
    The six video screens disappeared, to be replaced by one that was as big as the first two. What it displayed confused Charon, at first, because it appeared to be a reflection of herself in a mirror. That, and the fact that she didn't recognize the mirror, the attire being worn, or the crystal that was being held up to the center of "her" chest with both hands.
    Her confusion slowly turned to shock, as the now-shining crystal heralded the physical changes that began to happen to its user. She hadn't caught on to what the end result would be immediately, because the person being reflected in the mirror hadn't begun with a clear picture of said end result, but the changes that were kept began to add up, until she was certain of what to expect.
    To say that she was glad to be sitting down was an understatement, seeing as how Serenity's current appearance was now being reflected in the mirror. Then, as if to reinforce the message being conveyed, Serenity's computer-generated form flickered and changed to resemble the girl who had originally been reflected in the mirror, in every way save for the crystal that had been in her possession.
    Since she appeared to have made Charon speechless, Serenity tried to bring her out of it by nonchalantly saying, "No offense, but we would have looked more at home being employed in a brothel than we would have as a ruler of a kingdom in a palace."
    That seemed to do the trick, because Charon regained enough of her bearings to speak, though she sounded rather uncertain regarding the subject matter. "But I should be able to remember that... Shouldn't I?"
    "Normally," Serenity agreed, as she dismissed the video screen above her head, "but — as I said before — I came from a different galaxy." Noticing her audience's lack of understanding, she elaborated by adding, "That means that my star seed was born in a now-defunct galaxy cauldron, which is where all star seeds in a given galaxy are created. Before foreign star seeds — such as ours had been — can be reincarnated in this galaxy cauldron, they're first required to immerse themselves in the waters of Lethe, in order to give them a clean slate, as opposed to having to go through the more energy-consuming and time-demanding process of destroying and remaking them to produce the same result. That's why you still retain my original appearance when you are female, even if you can't remember any of our previous lives."
    Despite being overwhelmed by what she had learned, Charon had the feeling that something didn't add up. While she pursued that feeling, Serenity patiently waited for whatever might come of it.
    After realizing what the matter was, Charon sat up in her chair and pointedly asked, "Hold on: if I'm Sailor Charon, and I'm your reincarnation, then why didn't you become Sailor Pluto's partner?"
    Serenity smiled wanly at that. "I had wondered why I couldn't do that, myself. One day, while I was still looking for a suitable partner, I had woken up to find my sailor crystal lying next to my head. I'd known it to be mine upon the first touch, yet it had proven to be unresponsive to my will."
    "Puzzled by that," she went on, as she turned aside and began to "step" away from the center of the room, "I decided to see the guardian of the galaxy cauldron, to inquire as to the meaning of sending me a sailor crystal that didn't work." She paused directly in front of Charon, but continued to show her profile. "That's when I learned what would happen to the star seeds from my galaxy, if they wished to be reincarnated here. I could get around that with the Silver Moon Crystal, of course, but my star seed would continue to be incompatible with my sailor crystal."
    She closed her eyes and fell silent for a few seconds, and Charon was mindful enough to not say anything during that time despite all of the questions that had been raised. "My decision hadn't been an easy one to make. I had no one to take my place and rule my kingdom, as far as my trust and confidence in them was concerned. The political climate between my kingdom and the Golden Kingdom was unacceptable, and I still had some hope of improving relations between them. More importantly, I didn't have anyone to entrust the power of the Silver Moon Crystal to."
    She opened her eyes and turned to regard Charon with an unreadable expression on her face. "In addition to that, Setsuna was still just a child at the time. As strange as this might sound to you, I found the experience of raising a child to be quite novel, because I've never done it before. Our race had long abandoned concepts of family, sexual reproduction and child-rearing. If there was ever a need to increase our number, we simply constructed more of ourselves as adults and — at our discretion — imparted them with whatever knowledge and skills deemed necessary."
    It wasn't until then that Charon realized just how much of an alien Serenity was, and it stunned her enough to forget — momentarily — the questions that she had been preparing to pose. Despite her age, Serenity's human appearance had made it hard to associate her with an alien race, and that had felt especially true after she had learned about her involvement regarding the evolution of the human race. However, while she had once found it hard to imagine herself having a family, performing sex and raising children, never — once — had she ever thought any of those things to be outside of the realm of activities and behaviors that were considered normal for humans.
    "At any rate," Serenity continued, the soft tone of her voice matching the expression that was now on her face, "Setsuna had become very dear to me, in a way that I was only just beginning to understand at the time. So, ultimately, I decided that I would bear a child with my own body, and raise her until she was ready to take my place. Then, I would end my life and reincarnate, so that Pluto and Charon could one day meet."
    She paused, and appeared to be weighed down by sadness. "Things didn't work out as planned, as I'm sure you know. With both of the kingdoms in the solar system gone, I decided to reincarnate my daughter, her lover and the sailor senshi, thinking that it might be for the best if they had the freedom to decide what kind of lives they wished to live. To that end, I had to summon Sailor Saturn, so that she, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto could be reincarnated along with them."
    "It was only after that," she continued, "that I decided it was time to move on. After the guardian of the galaxy cauldron had reassured me that my next incarnation would be born at a time and place where she could meet the others, well..." She made a show of looking down at herself, to draw attention to her current form. "This is now all that remains of me."
    "Why?" Charon found herself asking, even though she already had a good idea of what the answer might be. "I mean, why tell me any of this?"
    Serenity smiled sadly. "I couldn't be satisfied without knowing your fates for certain. Originally, I wasn't going to say anything to you about our past, because I reasoned that you should have the same opportunity as the others. However, when it sounded like you might leave Setsuna to her own devices, I just..." She shrugged her shoulders helplessly.
    Charon smiled sympathetically. "I understand, so you don't have to apologize."
    She leaned back on the arms of the throne and stared up at the vaulted ceiling far above her, as she recalled her time with the senshi of — well — time. "To be honest, your concern was justified back then. After just a few days of guarding the Door of Time in the fourth dimension, I hadn't exactly been keen on making that a habit. On top of everything else, I can see why you hadn't said anything about how we were connected: because I might have been overwhelmed and dismissed any possibility of getting further involved outright."
    "Instead, I was able to put everything aside and focus on getting my future straightened out." She chuckled lightly. "It's funny how things can work out, sometimes. Setsuna and I may have been focused on the work, even if for our own reasons, but I couldn't help being drawn to her as both a friend and a role model, and it seemed quite natural for her to adopt a sort of older sibling relationship with me."
    She pulled herself into an upright position and sighed as she began to study her lap. "You know, I've always had some notion of what it's like to have a good relationship with a friend or a parent, but I hadn't been able to work out why things never seemed to turn out that way for the longest time. Then, without trying, or even being aware of what was occurring until it had already happened, it was a reality. It was surprising how easy it was, when our relationship was left to develop on its own."
    Serenity simply nodded her head in understanding.
    Charon didn't need to see the hint of melancholy in Serenity's eyes to understand what kind of situation they were in, after she had — in so many words — more or less confirmed that she wouldn't divorce herself from Setsuna after they had finished their business together, so it was with some concern that she asked, "So, what now? Or, rather: what are you going to do in the future, once we finish recording everything and you mark all of the events that need our attention?"
    "I will delete myself," Serenity stated matter-of-factly, with a stony expression on her face. "I've fulfilled my purpose, and I daresay that my selfishness has already caused enough trouble. We should be glad that our 'friend' from the Cepheid Kingdom had stumbled across the Door of Time first, and had become enthralled by the thought of manipulating future events instead of browsing further and finding memories pertaining to the creation of the Silver Moon Crystal."
    Charon wasn't sure how to respond to that, since she didn't know enough about the Silver Moon Crystal to know how it could be worse than the misuse of time travel. However, she did know enough about computers to counter with, "Why? Can't you just delete certain things and keep everything else?"
    "Do you understand what you are suggesting?" Serenity replied, with a shake of her head. "I didn't stick a copy of myself into a computer to cheat death. In fact, this is not an existence that I would wish on anyone. When I had given up my life, I had been prepared for what that would mean for me... With this one exception."
    Seeing the troubled look on Charon's face, she tried to console her by saying, "I've lived a long enough life, haven't I? And what better way to end it, if not on my own terms? Not many can claim to be so fortunate."
    While Charon understood what was being said, it didn't change the fact that the notion of willfully going through an avoidable death was a disagreeable one to her (partly as a result of personal experience). However, if Serenity's death was going to happen anyway, the least that she could do was ensure that it wouldn't be wasted. She didn't like it, but she had matured enough to know that she could very well make things worse if she acted on her feelings as if no others mattered.
    After thinking about things for a moment, she sighed with resignation and got to her feet. "Can you make me a promise?"
    Serenity cocked her head questioningly. "What about?"
    "When I get some more free time," Charon began, her tone measured and the expression on her face solemn, "I'd like for you to tell me more about yourself. I don't want to be left with any questions or regrets after you're gone."
    Serenity smiled faintly. "Consider it a promise, then."


Chapter 12


    As Ranma ate his dinner, he glanced around the table in a surreptitious manner as everyone else around him ate their own. He felt a bit out of place eating with the Tendo family and his own once again, despite the scene before him being a common sight, but the magic being used to disguise his age was a testament to just how long ago he'd last experienced it. That, and moreso the fact that he'd had to review the past few weeks so he could insert himself back into his own life seamlessly.
    Soun had the opposite side of the table to himself, while Kasumi and Nabiki shared the side of the table that was on his left. His parents occupied the side on his right, and he was glad that no one was sitting between himself and his mother (due to what he had planned). Beside him sat Akane, who was eating in a rather distracted manner despite the focused expression on her face.
    He imagined — by the expression on her face — that Akane had also received a warning from Kasumi, concerning the plans of their parents. For a moment, as his gaze lingered on her, he wondered what she was thinking, and whether any of her objections would be reserved solely for him. He would certainly understand if that happened to be the case, considering how he had once behaved toward her, but it would make things easier for him if she didn't.
    While marrying Akane wasn't absolutely required, as far as the future of the universe was concerned, things would certainly be less problematic if he didn't cause any significant changes to Kasumi's and Nabiki's lives, which a marriage to either one of them would certainly do. Marrying Akane would also be better than rejecting the arranged marriage outright, because both his father and Soun (particularly the former of the two) were capable of a lot of things when they were bound and determined to make something happen, and they were also liable to get Happosai involved as well.
    Being able to travel through time only gave him the advantage of seeing how things would happen as events stood, not how they could happen without changing any given event(s) first. So, the options that presented the least amount of possible surprises (as far as they could be determined) would be for the best. He didn't like having a marriage of convenience any more than he did an arranged one, but there wasn't much that he could do about that for the next nine-hundred-plus years, seeing as the repercussions of his actions could produce existence-threatening results during that time.
    That wasn't to say that he disliked the idea of being married to Akane: she was — by most counts — more desirable than the other options that were currently available to him, regardless of whether he had to be mindful of the universe's future or not. Plus, he'd seen her potential as a grown woman, and if she turned out to be anything like he'd witnessed... Well, he'd certainly have little to complain about.
    Despite that, however, he felt a bit uncomfortable about marrying Akane, because of the age difference that had developed between them. One day such a span of time between people would come to be regarded as common, or even expected; but that was "one day," not right then. He supposed that he could hold off on marrying her, at least until the law recognized her as an adult, but that was bound to provoke a response from his ever-impatient father.
    Also, he wasn't so happy about leading a double life. As much as he'd rather not keep such a secret to himself, about being Sailor Charon, there was no telling how Akane would react; and, on top of that, how that knowledge might factor into future events was a lot less certain than acting as if he'd never become a sailor senshi in the first place. More importantly, however, was the fact that it would be problematic — if not outright disastrous — if certain people became aware of Charon's existence under circumstances that differed from the kind that he had already established in lieu of his other self. In other words: it would be safer if Charon didn't make any kind of appearance until after a certain princess returned to the future, after setting off the series of events that had made Charon's presence a reality.
    There was also the matter with Ukyo, Shampoo and Kodachi, but that was to be expected since they were one of the main reasons behind the existence of the future that he was currently in the process of preventing. He hadn't known how to deal with them before, largely because they either ignored his protestations or knew how to play him when they couldn't, but now he was wiser and had a much better grasp of his priorities. That was unlikely to make a big difference in the short-term, seeing as they'd had no qualms about trying to murder people on multiple occasions (even someone as defenseless as Nabiki) while within his presence, but it would be better to deal with that than to choose any one of them over Akane.
    It wasn't going to be easy for him to move his life in the direction that he desired, but he was fairly confident that everything would work out if he took things one step at a time and chose his battles — and the battlefields that he fought them on — carefully. Also, should he ever happen to need more time to come up with a solution for a particular problem: not only did he have all of the time that he would ever need, he also had someone with whom he could consult and work out the problem.
    Once he was done eating, he prepared himself mentally for the first step in his plan. He would need more breathing room for the life that he wished to live, and that would require his mother working with him rather than against him. If he succeeded (and he was reasonably sure that he would), not only would his mother find more of his future decisions agreeable, but she would help to check some of his father's behavior (which would be necessary if he hoped to marry Akane at a later date).
    "Mother," he spoke up, addressing her casually yet in a firm and respectful manner, "may I see the pledge made by myself and my father?"
    Everyone stopped what they had been doing and focused their attention on him, due to the nature of the request and its unexpectedness. He couldn't see anyone who sat left of Soun, since he was giving his mother his undivided attention, but he imagined that they were either curious or confused about what he intended to do, if not both. That appeared to be the case with his mother, at least, while his father and Soun looked decidedly nervous.
    "...Of course," came Nodoka's belated reply, who was confused by the request but otherwise intrigued about her son's rare display of assertiveness.
    Genma watched — with a wary eye — as his wife procured the pledge in question from within the folds of her kimono, wondering whether or not he should intervene when she offered said pledge to their son, but he managed to keep his cool as he directed his attention to his offspring and nonchalantly said, "Couldn't get enough of our manly pledge, huh?"
    Rather than answer him, Ranma held up the pledge and looked it over, as if to check and see if everything was in order, before promptly tearing it down the middle. The tearing sound became particularly loud during the shocked silence that followed, as he methodically began to tear the pledge into progressively smaller pieces right before his mother's eyes.
    He knew that things could get out of hand if he didn't control the situation properly or efficiently enough, and one way to prevent that would be to keep certain people off-balance by moving things along before they could recover their wits. Even though his father looked pale in the face and ready to bolt, while Soun appeared to be on the verge of fainting, he couldn't count on them to stay that way for long. Neither did he expect anyone else to stay inactive or silent, if given enough time; not even his mother, who appeared to be quite overwhelmed by what she had just witnessed.
    So, before anyone could say or do anything to rob him of his momentum, he established eye contact with his mother, dropped what remained of the pledge onto the table, and pointedly asked, "Mother, why would you ensure that I would have to commit seppuku even if I upheld the pledge?"
    His mother wasn't in a state of mind to offer an intelligent reply, so it was more out of reflex than a presence of mind that she faintly responded with, "Wh-whatever do you mean...?"
    As Nabiki regarded Ranma with a speculative eye, she wondered the same thing. It wasn't unusual for him to do stupid and risky things, or to make a big production out of it, and — on the surface — that appeared to be the case. However, while she couldn't quite put her finger on the how of it, she was all but certain that something was different from the ordinary, something that allowed him to do what she had once thought to be checked by what little self-preservation he seemed to have. After all, he'd never shown much of a spine whenever it had concerned both his mother and his manliness, despite all of the other life-threatening things that he did without much (if any) thought.
    Normally, she might have said something for the sake of her own amusement or personal gain, but she thought better of it this time. Ranma was about as good at controlling a conversation as Akane was at cooking food, in no small part due to the fact that he hardly ever managed to have a handle on them from the very start, but — from both personal experience and use — it was evident that he was off to a good start at doing just the opposite. In a way, it was like seeing a child finally growing up, and it would be a shame to derail it for no good reason.
    Of course, it also helped that she could see the potential for an interesting development without her involvement. Why put any effort into something that didn't clearly need it, right? And what more could she do, seeing as how — in a worst-case scenario — he could quite literally (in a figurative way) be digging his own grave? In the end, even if things worked out the way that he desired, it would be a nice change from how things usually turned out, which — to her — had long lost the freshness of its appeal.
    "What I mean," Ranma calmly replied, as he continued to hold his mother's gaze with his own, "is how can I be a man among men when my fate is in another's hands, rather than in my own? If I am to be a man, I must be the one to define my place in the world, or else I am nothing more than a man below other men; I'll be an imitation of men before me, rather than an archetype of manhood myself."
    For melodramatic effect, he stood up, placed a foot upon the table, curled an arm until his fist was level with his chest, and cast his gaze toward the heavens. Upon doing so, it was with a fair amount of ardor that he proceeded to say, "If I am to be a man among men, I can not allow myself to be shackled by the words and desires of others. Rather than row a ship where another dictates, I should desire no less than to be the captain of my own ship, and charting my own course. Instead of being thought of as a man patterned after another, I will stand out and be recognized as a man who forged his own destiny, rather than being one among many others who were at the mercy of cruel fate."
    Relief flooded Genma when he saw his wife looking up at their child with stars in her eyes. His son's little stunt was a chip off the ol' block, or so he would like to think. However, while it seemed as if he would no longer have to worry about being on the wrong end of his wife's sword (as far as his son's manliness was concerned, at any rate), something about the speech didn't sit right with him.
    Nabiki was quick to catch on to what didn't sit right with Genma, because the nature of the arranged marriage was no different from the pledge that had so recently been torn to shreds (aside from the consequences for not following through with them, of course). Feeling that it wouldn't hurt to inject a little disturbance, since it wouldn't be long before the full extent of Ranma's words would be understood by someone else even if Ranma didn't mention it himself, she opened her mouth to speak.
    However, upon doing so, she suddenly found her mouth filled with tofu. Rather than trying to chew and swallow it as fast as she could, she just sat there and stared at the person who was — without a doubt — responsible for silencing her. Not only because she wouldn't have enough time to clear her mouth for speech, before someone else spoke, but because of the forethought and nerve that Ranma had exercised to do what he had done.
    "Rob me of my fun, will you?" She thought to herself, as her now-narrowed eyes conveyed that a certain someone should expect a retaliation of some kind in the future.
    "Of course," Ranma continued, as he casually returned to his seat, "what I'm saying applies to the engagement as well."
    Genma drew himself up in preparation for his reply, and Nabiki slowly consumed the tofu in her mouth as she observed Ranma showing no intention of stopping him. "Now, just hold on there, boy. The engagement is a matter of honor, and anyone who would claim to be a man would respect that."
    "So you say," Ranma replied evenly, before suddenly jabbing his index finger toward the space between his father and Soun — for dramatic effect — and saying, "yet aren't you and Tendo-san the ones who are sabotaging any chance of that happening, despite being responsible for the engagement in question?"
    Nodoka turned to regard her husband with a frown. "Is that true?"
    "O-of course not!" Genma sputtered, his brow breaking out with a cold sweat in response to his wife's attention. "To do such a thing would be absurd!"
    "That's right!" Soun spoke up in agreement, before becoming somewhat unsure of himself. "I mean, when have we ever done that?"
    "Only every time you involved yourself," Kasumi idly commented, in her usual, unobtrusive way, before calmly taking a sip of her tea.
    "Either way," Ranma said, as he caught the eye of each family's patriarch in turn, "your involvement is unnecessary. If I'm going to prove myself to be a man among men, the woman I marry must be a product of our own choices and efforts. And if I am ever forced to choose between honor and love, well," he shrugged his shoulders helplessly, "matters of the heart will win every time."
    Nodoka sighed dreamily in response to that, and acquired a far-off look in her eyes. "Oh, that reminds me of how your father and I became a couple. His master didn't want him to forsake his training for anything, so he had courted me in secret. When our relationship had been discovered, he had risen up against his master so we could be together." Her eyes appeared to regain their focus as a thoughtful expression presented itself on her face, and then she turned her attention to her husband. "It's been a while since I last heard of your epic, manly battle. Would you care to be the one who regales them, dear?"
    Genma coughed behind his fist and turned his head away from everyone's scrutiny, especially from those whose expressions bespoke — at the very least — of their disbelief and/or skepticism. Not even Soun spared him from such attention, who had a good reason for wanting to hear his friend's version of the events that had seen them liberated from their master.
    Ranma smiled inwardly with satisfaction, knowing that his father wouldn't have much of a leg to stand on if he ever decided to challenge what he had in mind for his relationship with Akane. That wouldn't stop his father from trying, of course: while he didn't expect him to do anything at that very moment, after what his wife had just revealed about their courtship and marriage, it wasn't the sort of thing that would discourage him for very long. After all, when the threat of seppuku had loomed before his father, he had — quite stubbornly — chosen to hide from his wife indefinitely instead of doing the sensible thing (such as actually trying to resolve the matter).
    "Before that," he chimed in, in order to prevent his father from being pressured into leaving, or doing something foolish before he could convey what he intended to say next, "I'd like to make something clear: I have every intention of pursuing a relationship with Akane." He shifted in his seat, until he was facing the person in question, and presented a somewhat reserved smile. "That is: if you wouldn't mind going out with me?"
    "Huh?" Akane voiced in response, as she suddenly found herself put on the spot and at the center of everyone's attention.
    Until then, she had been reasonably content as a quiet observer, though not entirely of her own accord. When Ranma had torn up the pledge, for instance, she had been shocked speechless. Then, when he had included the arranged marriage in his game plan, she had become preoccupied by the mix of emotions that it had inspired, which is how she had been caught off guard upon being addressed.
    It wasn't that she disliked Ranma, because she didn't, but her feelings were mixed because he was far from being her ideal partner. Add on to that the baggage that came with him, and she was rather reluctant to feel all that strongly about him, much less to the point of expressing what feelings she had in front of an audience. So, in her current situation, where her words would likely be misconstrued to mean more than they did, yet otherwise feeling pressured to say something, she was of a mind to take the less problematic route and deny what she truly felt.
    However, Ranma was aware of what kind of position he had put her in, and knew that he couldn't appear too much unlike his usual self, so he looked up thoughtfully and added, "Unless, of course, you're not ready for something like that..."
    Akane turned her head to regard Ranma with a suspicious look. "And just what is that supposed to mean?"
    "You're a tomboy," Ranma bluntly replied, as if the answer should have been obvious. "Since you're so macho, I'd probably have to be a girl for us to have a proper date."
    He didn't get a chance to laugh about it for very long before Akane seized the table and brought it down on his head. As was often the case, everyone else had seen it coming and had quickly removed everything from the table before it had been utilized for such a purpose.
    After Akane stormed away in a huff, Ranma continued to remain beneath the table, glad that he had accomplished what he had set out to do. That assessment didn't include his altercation with Akane, however, since that had been used to maintain the illusion that he hadn't really changed (not by much, anyway).
    In that regard, he was sure that Akane would cool down before long, which would allow him to take the necessary steps for them to advance their relationship. (Which would be a good thing, since he'd forgotten how much it had hurt to be hit over the head with a table.) He reasoned that it wouldn't be difficult to do, since he harbored genuine feelings for her, even if they weren't quite a match for what his alternate future self had felt.
    "Well," he thought to himself, as he considered future plans and events, "it'll certainly be easier than a lot of other things that I'll have to deal with. And the results will definitely be a lot more pleasant."
    Unfortunately, once the next morning's incident was definitively averted, he'd have to rejoin Pluto, in order to check for any potential paradoxes — and resolve them, should they exist — before he could enjoy the aforementioned pleasant results. Oh, what he would do to give a piece of his mind to those who ever made time travel look easy...


Epilogue


    When Chibi-Usa left the fourth dimension and returned to her own time, she raced through the halls of the palace without a care for any decorum and made a beeline for the guest room that had been assigned to Ranma. It went without saying that she was eager to see if she had been successful in her endeavor, and she figured that she could be forgiven for her act of haste and the times that she had either startled someone or collided with them on the way to her destination.
    Once she made it to the door of the guest room, she didn't hesitate to throw it open and rush inside. She found Ranma and her mother standing in the middle of the room, their conversation having apparently been interrupted, and they were close enough to the door that she had to skid to a halt so she wouldn't plow into them. On any other occasion she may have been embarrased by her mother's look of amusement at her behavior, or Ranma's cocked eyebrow, but she was short of breath and had something that was much more important on her mind.
    "Did," she managed to gasp out between breaths, "did it... work?"
    Her mother and Ranma shared a glance, before the latter abruptly hit her on the head with the blade of her hand.
    "Ow!" She yelped, as she rubbed at the offended area of her noggin and glared at Ranma with a mixture of agitation and confusion. "What was that for?"
    Ranma frowned and crossed her arms. "It was not a piece of cake."
    "...Huh?" Came Chibi-Usa's not-so-eloquent response, who was puzzled by the statement.
    Ranma sighed and dropped her arms at her sides, having known that such a reaction would be likely, but she maintained her frown. "You told me that it would be a piece of cake for Pluto to help me, but it was anything but — and not just for her. If your grandmother hadn't recorded my activity for nine centuries and isolated the events that Pluto and I would need to address, I can scarcely imagine how much harder it would have been for us."
    "Oh..." Chibi-Usa voiced quietly, her shoulders slumped, feeling both apologetic and sheepish. "I just thought—"
    Before she could finish what she had in mind to say, Ranma pulled her into a hug and began to caress the back of her head, with her face being pressed into her prodigious bosom. As off-kilter as the entire exchange had made her, since she had imagined a much different scenario, she didn't offer any resistance or think to reciprocate the embrace.
    "You don't have to explain yourself," Ranma softly assured the girl within her arms. "I was just messin' with ya. Sure, all the work we had to do was a pain, but it was worth it in the end, and it never would have happened if you hadn't gotten the ball rolling in the first place."
    Chibi-Usa looked up at Ranma with a hopeful expression on her face. "So... Everything worked out?"
    Ranma smiled. "Yeah. Everything's fine."
    It was with evident relief that Chibi-Usa finally returned Ranma's embrace. "I'm glad."
    Usagi observed them with a reserved smile, in an attempt to hide how she felt inside. It had only been moments ago that she had learned of her mother's — Serenity's — passing, and it was hard to put it aside so soon. It was made no less difficult by the fact that Ranma had been unwilling to share the reason for it, aside from saying that her mother had fulfilled her purpose. When pressed for more information, she had been assured that she would know when she — Ranma — was ready. She'd yet to have time to think about the implications of such a statement, but she began to get an idea of what it could mean as she watched Ranma and her daughter while they were so close together.
    Both she and her husband had been a bit baffled when their daughter had been born, because of the coloring of her eyes and hair, and about her appearance in general as she grew up. Genetically, there was no doubt that she was their daughter, but she had strongly taken after her own side of the family. And that was the thing: there was very little resemblance to her known ancestors despite that fact, to the extent that it was quite easy to question her parentage on looks alone. However, as she studied and compared the traits between her daughter and Ranma, she began to realize that their similarities were greater than she had first imagined, and it made her think that it might not just be a coincidence.
    Considering all of the possibilities, there was a real chance that Ranma was actually a relative, though she wasn't sure how that could be connected to her reluctance to share the details concerning her mother's passing even if that happened to be the case. She would have to save her questions until she had the opportunity to ask them in private, in case there was a good reason for why she was unwilling to reveal what she knew to begin with. Until then, it would be better to enjoy what good news there was to be had, rather than put a damper on things and risk spoiling the mood for her daughter as well. She'd never been really good at waiting, but she was sure that she could bear with it for the time being.
    When her daughter finally parted from Ranma, she caught her attention and said, "When you arrived, Ranma was in the middle of telling me about the arrangement between herself and Setsuna."
    Chibi-Usa's face lit up with excitement and she turned to regard Ranma with a look of expectation.
    Ranma chuckled lightly at that. "We're simply going to take turns guarding the Door of Time. When one of us is guarding it, the other can have a life outside of the fourth dimension. After I'm done here," she added, her tone becoming a bit playful in nature, "I'll switch with Setsuna, since I believe there was a reason for why you got me involved in all of this."
    Chibi-Usa stuck her tongue out at Ranma for that last remark, though she quickly sobered when she had a thought. "You don't have to do that on my account. I'll be just as happy if you stayed here for a while. I'm sure that time wouldn't be an issue..."
    With a disarming smile, Ranma laid her hand on Chibi-Usa's head and mussed up her hair before she could get away. "I appreciate the thought, but I'll be fine."
    Chibi-Usa huffed and put on a petulant air as she watched Ranma walking toward the room's exit. "Fine, then. Be that way."
    Ranma chuckled, raised her hand so it could be seen over her shoulder, and waved it dismissively as she passed through the doorway. She proceeded to make her way toward the Door of Time, alone and in silence, so her mind inevitably drifted toward some of the things that had been mentioned in the room that she had just left.
    The tasks that she had undertaken with Setsuna really hadn't been a piece of cake, all things considered, even though there was a distinct advantage to going beyond the third dimension instead of through it where time-traveling was concerned. When one was not strictly bound by time, and could thus — for all intents and purposes — exist virtually anywhere at any time, it was fairly easy to avoid causing paradoxes indirectly. It still required fore-thought and prudence, of course, and that was especially true for the paradoxes that were directly caused by one's actions.
    Before they could even begin to change history, Setsuna had spent quite a number of years tutoring her on all of the subjects that were relevant to time travel. She couldn't always expect Setsuna to be present to prevent mistakes, due to ignorance or otherwise, so it was important that she be taught what she would need to know in order to have the ability to spot potential trouble and judge a course of action when something could — or did — go awry.
    Then there were the acting lessons, and the memory-improvement exercises, so she wouldn't break character or forget what she was supposed to do or say. Improving her memory had been more tedious than challenging, but the acting lessons had been a lot more brutal than her training to learn both the hiryu shoten ha and the umisen-ken. Considering how important it would be to control her emotions and behavior at all times during her stints as her other self, lest she make a grave mistake, Setsuna had proven to be quite a demanding taskmistress.
    Setsuna wasn't the only one to teach during that time, nor did she escape having a rough time as a student herself. With the changing of Akane's fate, alongside her own, Ryoga would no longer have such a strong drive for vengeance and a need to continue the pursuit of it until fulfilled. Someone had to disguise themselves and take his place, and she already had a role, so the responsibility had fallen upon Setsuna, who had to undergo a few years of specialized martial arts training just to attain the level of strength needed for the task.
    That had brought up the need to suppress the energy given off by their sailor crystals, since Ryoga didn't have one, and because it would be something that she would need to do for centuries at a time, so her nature wouldn't be discovered until it was the right time. Otherwise, there was very little hope that any damage control could prevent a paradox, unless they happened to be very fortunate under the circumstances. Thankfully, Serenity had been able to fashion a device that could do the job. Hardly anyone would be able to tell — much less notice — that the implant was more than what it seemed until technology advanced far enough along to identify its function, and that required giving said technology an opportunity to notice and inspect it. (Accessories had certain limitations (particularly with her choice of fashion), and clothing was more likely to be damaged, so a durable and hidden implant had been decided upon.)
    When they were finally prepared to change her history, they had to start in the future to ensure that Chibi-Usa's actions would remain the same once the past was altered. From there, they worked backwards, cementing certain events so that any change made before them wouldn't change them outright. It was made possible by the fact that they were done in Ranma's past, relative to the event that would be altered, which took advantage of the fact that changing events had no retroactive effects on history. Then, due to the fact that they could exist anywhere at any time, it was just a matter of spotting conflicts between two histories (what they had established versus what the altered past produced) and resolving them.
    That was the part that was tricky, since it was beyond their abilities and the technology available to them to take every factor into account, in order to foresee exactly how changes in the past would alter things down the line. While they were in a position to sort such conflicts out, they could still paint themselves into a corner, where nothing that they could do — ever — would prevent a paradox. While they had the ability to affect change beyond themselves, they couldn't contradict their own history, so if they happened to place themselves in a situation where the only resolution was to have never done a certain thing in the first place...
    Fortunately, through careful planning and preparation, they were able to establish a new destiny for herself. Even though he was a terrible man, changing her history hadn't affected Phantom's period of death and destruction, and it was largely thanks to that that history changed very little (in general) from that point onward. Also, between all of the destruction and displacement of people that was caused by Phantom's actions, it ensured that Neo-Queen Serenity would still have to resort to tracking her down for that reward, since her female form had no official form of identity, rather than appearing on someone's doorstep and learning the altered truth of her situation.
    Overall, they didn't have too much trouble manipulating the events that surrounded the portrayal of her other self, so that there wouldn't be anything that conflicted with the new circumstances. However, they did have to enlist Kasumi and Sayuri's cooperation, and that had gone rather smoothly since their roles were short-lived and easy in comparison to her own. In tandem with that, since Akane had been killed by Phantom in the alternate history, they had to pretend that that remained the case, while she made sure that Chibi-Usa and Akane would never meet during her trips to Nerima, or learn of her existence through someone else.
    When she reached the Door of Time, she paused in front of it and thought about the only unresolved matter that remained: Serenity. Specifically, who she — herself — was in relation to Neo-Queen Serenity and her daughter. Technically, she wasn't Serenity, but there was no guarantee that they would see it the same way as she did. They might bear certain expectations, and she wasn't sure if she could accept or handle them; it was a potential complication in her life that she could do without for the time being, after everything that she had recently been through.
    Of course, she wouldn't be able to hide the truth behind Serenity's passing from Neo-Queen Serenity forever, who was bound to pursue an answer from her before too long. She just wanted to be ready for when she gave that answer, because of how it might change their relationship. Plus, once it got out, it would only be a matter of time before Setsuna learned about it, and she was even less certain of how to broach the subject with her because her feelings on the matter were even more tumultuous.
    Setsuna had become a lot of things to her over the years: mentor, role model, friend, sister, mother, and a woman that she held in the highest regard. However, despite focusing on other things, and knowing what complications could arise from it, she couldn't help feeling attracted to her romantically. In addition to being unable to abandon her life as Ranma, and wanting to give Akane and herself a chance as a couple (which they hadn't truly had before), she also had to worry about how she would be perceived by Setsuna once she learned certain details about Serenity. It wasn't like she was any less unsure about their chance as a couple, as things stood, but knowing those things had the potential to change things between them greatly, perhaps irrevocably.
    With a sigh, she transformed into Sailor Charon and used her Obsidian Oar to open the Door of Time. She didn't have to make any decisions just yet, and she still had time to think about what she would do in the future, so she put that aside — for now — and focused on the task at hand: relieving Pluto of her guard duty, so she could spend some time having a life and being with her friends.
    She spared Pluto a glance as she closed the Door of Time behind her, before going to stand guard at her own post. It felt natural to be there now, and she very much liked the company. Said company was the main reason for why she had opted to accept the responsibility of a sailor senshi and become a co-guardian of the Door of Time. Setsuna wasn't a person that she could put behind her and forget about, nor could she abandon the world that she lived in without it nagging at her conscience. A martial artist's duty was to protect those who couldn't protect themselves, after all, and being a sailor senshi would provide more opportunities and means of doing so.
    When she had come to that decision, Pluto had taught her the trick that she used to stand guard for so long without going crazy. It had required training her mind to be passively aware of what her senses were telling her while she remained standing, so time would seem meaningless until she brought herself out of it or one of her senses picked up something that couldn't be attributed to the norm of her environment. After a few seconds, she eased herself into that very state of mind.
    While she wasn't aware of how much time had passed, the fact that Pluto hadn't left her post after she had taken up her own was enough to bring her out of it and regard her partner with a cocked eyebrow. "Why haven't you left yet? They're waiting for you, you know."
    "I could spend an eternity here and they would never realize it," Pluto responded, before she looked askance and smiled in a mysterious sort of way. "Of course, if you don't like the company, I suppose we could part ways right now..."
    Charon gulped and smiled weakly. It was remarks like that one that made her wonder if she wasn't the only one who felt something for the other, or if it was just friendly teasing. She'd always played it safe with her replies so far, due to her uncertainty over the matter and her commitment to having a relationship with Akane (whose limited lifespan made it imperative to not take said relationship lightly), and now would be no different.
    With a roll of her eyes, she said, "Oh, alright. Who am I to deny someone the privilege of basking in my awesomeness?"
    Pluto snorted in amusement at that, appearing to be satisfied with the response, before she returned her attention to the fore and went back to her duty.
    Charon suppressed a sigh of relief and calmed her heart. As she continued to regard Pluto, she was once again tempted to just cast away her inhibitions — along with anything else of significance — and put their current relationship on the line with some physical or verbal expression of her feelings (she wasn't sure which, if not both). Unfortunately, even if she revealed how she felt, not only was she not sure of whether Pluto would reciprocate in kind or not, she had no idea if her sex mattered in the case that she did.
    She had absolutely no problem being a woman now, but she had remained hesitant about pursuing anything sexual as one. If Pluto returned her feelings, but preferred other women, she wasn't sure if she would be able to go through with it. Of course, Pluto could also prefer men, or not care what sex she was, but that was still assuming that she was interested at all. It was a big unknown, despite how long they had known each other. It wasn't all that surprising, though, since neither of them were the type to say much about themselves. That, and because so much of their time together had been spent under work-related conditions.
    Still, she smiled. There was still time to figure everything out, and her prospects could certainly be worse (if the life of her other self was anything to go by). She'd learned patience, and knew that trying to rush things could spell disaster. So, for now, she remained optimistic about her future and joined her fellow guardian in companionable silence.


Afterword


    I'm aware that some things didn't turn out according to certain expectations, and I'd like to clarify that the story was built around Setsuna's situation and Chibi-Usa's response to it. The story was never about Ranma or who he could potentially be paired up with, even though he is integral to the plot.
    When I first conceived the idea for this story, I wasn't going to bother with any pairings at all, but I eventually relented and offered some conflict and uncertainty, and left it up to the imagination as to how things might turn out.
    I regret being unable to expound on what Ranma can do as a sailor senshi. I had planned on it, but there never seemed to be a good time and place to bring it up. Unfortunately, the part where it would be most natural to mention it was when Ranma's inexperience came into play, since I felt that it would make more sense if he couldn't win by himself. Not only due to his inexperience, but fighting an opponent who has many thousands of years worth of experience to back up their skills. Besides, the attack that I had conceived was a one-hit kill sort of deal, to send a single enemy to "the other side," so there was no firing of a coin like Misaka Mikoto. ;/
    Finally, there's the time travel stuff. It's not a subject where I'm confident with my knowledge and understanding, and I put some of that together with a portion of how it's portrayed in the manga. I fear, regardless of whether I got anything right or wrong about it, that how I describe the particulars in the story might make understanding it difficult, if not impossible.
    When all is said and done, though, I hope that the tale was enjoyed.