Ranma ½ Baby Goliath and the Ugly Duckling

[BukkakeNoJutsu]

Pluto is going to shit a brick and I'm fine with that

 

[shioran toushin]

well, we can expect a different resolution at the end the of Cosmos Vs Chaos debacle, if it ever goes to that, that's for sure.

 

[Dumbledork]

Well, it would be nice if, now that Usagi has abandoned Endymion, his powers would be transferred to Ranma.

 

[zane]

Liked this bit here "She emerged from the table archipelago into the open sea and found a few dozen paired vessels meandering around to the tune of the music. Above them, huge crystal chandeliers hung from the ballroom ceiling and diffused light onto the dance floor in truly mesmerizing fashion. " Maybe more fully flesh out that dreamlike description of the ballroom floor sea? As it stands its more inferred than described.

Wonder what else lies in store for dreamscape Usagi. Really digging this so far, keep it up!

 

[shioran toushin]

Well, it would be nice if, now that Usagi has abandoned Endymion, his powers would be transferred to Ranma.

not 'abandoned' but, "Want to date me? then work for it because i'm not continuing from where our past 'incarnations' ended".
and really has there been a canonical happenstance in SM where 'transfer of power/Senshidom/Guardianship' has ocurred without stealing a star seed or by members of the same lineage?
also, I'm thinking that Ranma doesn't need a SM styled Powerup, because while being horrible underpowered in comparsion to SM manga powerlevels, he is more skilled, has a wide variety of actual skills and this particular version has Akuma (meaning that for OMGWTFPWNage he has Oni to fear and Oni went mano a mano and blow for blow with freaking Asura World/God Buster in the Lost Episode, so this Ranma may get that ridiculous, OTOH the Shitennou were just Human Generals without fancy shmancy things like Star seed enhancements, magical destinies or CHaos/Demonically infusions (at least they were until Metallia got them), they were just that good, same could be said for the Dark Moon Family (again at least until the Spactre got them), and if not from the 'Draining Effect' Makoto would've beagen a couple of Yoma by herself in Civilian pre-awakened form by herself.

 

[Dumbledork]

Ranma should at least get the senshi's life expectancy.

 

[shioran toushin]

Ki, Chi, Life energy, Spiritual Energy (if there is any actual difference between them) plus whatever Goki did to himself makes me think that's a non issue for the near future, unless you are talking about them living for millenia or for more than five centuries.

 

[SHINKIJIN]

Now I'm confused... a very familiar state of mind for me.

 

[lokinishizaki]

Well, that should be the end of the first arc. We've reached the point of no return.

This entire chapter was particularly difficult to write. I think I managed to handle it properly, though. Anyway, you know the drill. If you have any insights, please share them.

I'm thinking of posting this on ff.net soon. I've almost reached 50k words. The next chapter might take a while, because I still need to work out all the kinks in Ryoga's introduction.

Oh yes, one last thing. Don't read too much into it. I just couldn't resist. I'm lame like that.

You'll understand when you see it. If you don't, disregard this entirely.

[hr]

Chapter 3 - Fever dream​

Part two​

Beyond the walls of the newly disfigured ballroom were halls and locales befitting an incredible palace, the likes of which his Majesty the Emperor himself would be proud to call his home. Displayed in prominent fashion throughout the gilded hallways were exquisite works of art from a wide spectrum of disciplines. Hand shaped pottery, paintings and statues made the whole place feel lived in, despite the fact that they never encountered a single soul.

After what felt like an hour of aimless wandering, they passed by a white mannequin clothed in a peculiar outfit. Its form-fitting white bodice and navy blue mini-skirt seemed out of place in this decor. Usagi slowed and noted the large red bow and expensive looking golden brooch attached to the center of the chest. The overall outfit was cute, but she couldn't help but feel that it wasn't casual wear. It felt more like Nobunaga's suit of armor on display at the Tokyo National Museum.

She stopped and rethought that, knowing that that image had been too weak. Her eyes trailed down the long white gloves clinging to the mannequin's plastic arms and the red boots snugly wrapped around its plastic legs. When she focused on the golden tiara on top of the featureless head, an image flashed through her head that she immediately felt was more appropriate.

“A decommissioned Mitsubishi bomber? This thing?” Ranma asked as he carelessly leaned over and poked mannequin in the chest.

“Yeah…” Usagi blinked, still somewhat transfixed by the costume. “How'd you know what I was thinking?”

Ranma casually lifted the skirt and had a peek at the structure underneath, and Usagi quite suddenly felt like slapping him. “We're in your head, remember Usagi? When you think about it that strongly, it's like you're screaming it at the top of your lungs.” He turned to look at her through the corner of his eyes, a slight smirk on his lips. “Or, you know, slapping me across the face.”

Her face flushed with color and she quickly looked away from him.

“What's your deal, anyway? It's a mannequin, Usagi,” the boy pointed out.

She opened her mouth to articulate why his indiscretion offended her so, but when she reached for her reasons a nebulous mess of indistinct emotions and fuzzy memories was all that she could grasp.

In the end, she could only cross her arms and pout. “I just don't like it,” she mumbled.

Ranma rolled his eyes and walked away from the plastic model. Usagi spared the suit a lingering look, and hurried after him.

Some time later, they passed by a portrait that bore her likeness. In it, she had white hair and wore a beautiful white gown with fairy wings. On her head was a golden crown, and on top of that crown was a perfect diamond the likes of which she'd never seen before.

“Well, are we close?”

She jerked out of her reverie, blinking repeatedly. “Close to what?”

Ranma stopped, like an invincible steel wall had materialized directly in front of him. He spun on his heel and stared at her. “What do you mean? Usagi, you're supposed to be leading us to the Velvet Room.”

“The what?” She opened her mouth and shut it again in confusion. “Then… wait. Why are you in front?”

Ranma raised his arms in exasperation. “I don't have to be behind you to follow you, Usagi!”

She wanted to refute that. She really did, but she had the sinking suspicion that if she tried, they'd spend an hour or so proving her wrong. So, with slumped shoulders, she moved on. “What's the Velvet Room?”

“It's the informal name for your spiritual center, the central point from which every part of you extends. The monks always say that reaching your center is the first step towards reaching nirvana, and they're not exaggerating.”

“Oh. Is that what we're trying to do? Reach nirvana?” She asked, quite intimidated by the lofty task.

Ranma snorted. “Of course not. That's the exact opposite of what we're going to do here.”

“What?”

Ranma walked to a nearby pedastal and examined a bronze bust bearing her likeness. “You know what nirvana is?”

Usagi thought back to her cultural studies. “Um… Isn't it the ultimate liberation from suffering?”

“Yeah, achieved by abandoning your passions,” Ranma said sarcastically. “To abandon earthly desires is to abandon parts of you, Usagi. It's taking a hacksaw to your heart and soul and lopping off anything you don't like, like keeping a tree in a pot and cutting it down so that it fits your definition of beauty.” He said, in clear disgust.

“I don't get it,” she told him.

“Okay, it's like this. It's painful to lose. A monk's solution to that would be to not care about losing, as opposed to winning all the time. ‘Abandon your desire for victory, and you will not feel the sting of loss.’ Bah.” Ranma spat. “The Anything Goes school of martial arts believes in growth, Usagi! So no, we're not going to reach nirvana, today or ever.”

Faced with the fierce look on his face, there was only one thing to say. “Okay…”

Ranma shook his head, immersed in his thoughts. “What the hell's the point of sitting on mountaintop for fifty years, anyway?” He muttered in frustration.

She looked at him worriedly. “Are you okay, Ranma?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just bad memories is all,” he said, waving her off. “Anyway, the first step to learning the Over-soul secret technique is normally to close your spirit off to the world and kind of tie it into a knot, if that makes any sense.”

“It doesn't,” she assured him.

“Right,” he nodded thoughtfully. He fell into a crouch and bounced a few times on the white marble floor. “Alright, let's say that you sneak away from your oppressive captor to see a martial arts movie about some historical hero, say Wong Fei-hung. The moves are a little weak, but the movie's still awesome. You come out of the theatre and you're juiced, happy, excited and motivated. Follow me?”

She nodded.

“The next day, when you think about the movie, you're still happy and excited but the feeling's weaker, right?”

She nodded again.

“Feelings change over time. That's what makes us flexible and adaptable as living beings. The first step of Over-soul is to restrain that flexibility. You grab onto your feelings and you never let go.”

Usagi thought about that. “Isn't that unhealthy?”

Her friend thought about that for a few moments, and climbed to his feet. “It's pretty dangerous,” he admitted. “But you get used to it, mostly. It's the best way to force your spirit to grow. You mitigate the danger by meditating regularly and realigning your center, so that your balance is always the same. If you wait too long, you forget what you used to be, and that starts a downward spiral that eventually ends in insanity. Like Akuma, who let his rage and anger grow rampantly until it overwhelmed every other part of him and now he's nothing but a giant, bubbling mass of hatred.”

She shivered at the thought of that man and gently rubbed her elbows. “Is that what happened to him?”

“As far as I can figure, yeah,” he said, crossing his arms. “That's why he's so strong. He hates everyone and everything so he just keeps getting stronger all the time even if he doesn't do anything. As long as he exists next to something, he'll hate it and therefore grow stronger. It's weird though.”

“What?”

Ranma shook his head. “Usually, martial artists who fall into that cycle eventually learn to hate themselves, so they just self-destruct. But Akuma's been like this for a long time. Longer than my dad's been alive even. He's a freak, Usagi. A real monster.”

He glared at the floor hatefully, but quickly mastered the emotion and shook his head.

She tilted her head. “Is that what you just did?”

He stared at her. “What?”

“Just now, did you just… re-center yourself?”

He stared at her weirdly. “Yeah… Good eyes.”

His praise forced a smile out of her. “And, after that? What's the next step?”

“Well, there is no next step, really. Once your spirit grows past a completely arbitrary point, you reach Over-soul. It's more of a state of being than an active technique, but it's the foundation of advanced martial arts. I'll tell you the particulars later, though. We're here.”

Usagi stared confusedly as Ranma approached an ornate set of double doors. “What? But we haven't gone anywhere.”

“Sure we have,” Ranma shot back.

Usagi's finger shot up, ready to point at the portrait that would prove her assertion correct. It hovered confusedly as she looked up and saw that the portrait was gone. It dropped down entirely as she realized that she didn't recognize her immediate surroundings. “Wha–”

Ranma leaned against the closed doors and laughed lightly at her expense. “You don't have to use your feet to move in this place, Usagi. It's enough to let your mind wander.”

“Oh,” she said, and moved to join Ranma. “So this is the Velvet Room?”

“Yup,” he said, nodding. “Right behind these doors.”

The doorframe was a ten foot tall arch made out of the same white marble as the doors themselves. Carved into the stone were reliefs of angels lounging and playing instruments. The doors themselves were largely exempt of decoration, save for a simple crescent moon in the middle of each door.

She bit her lip nervously. “What do we have to do? You don't have to tie me into a knot, do you?”

“I didn't mean that literally, Usagi.”

“Oh. Good,” she exclaimed.

“It should be pretty easy,” Ranma admitted. “Your spirit's plenty big enough for Over-soul already.”

It wasn't the first time he'd said that, and she still had trouble believing it. “Are you sure? I mean…” She worried her hands nervously. “What if I can't do it? What'll we do then?”

Ranma rolled his eyes. “Usagi, your spirit's bigger than mine.”

She blinked in utmost surprise. His face had a complex expression, like a high-school baseball coach watching his team miss out on the Koshien. “You–you're serious?”

“Yeah. The aura you pulled out a few weeks ago against Akuma was just–” Ranma rubbed his jawline. “Honestly, I was a bit jealous.”

She had no words. No words at all.

Ranma shook his head, and scoffed to himself. He pointed his thumb at the door he was leaning against. “Anyway, all you have to do is go into that room and memorize everything that's in it. Try to understand everything that you see. Shouldn't be too hard seeing as how it's your head. Once you truly understand the contents of the Velvet Room, you'll have everything you need to achieve Over-soul. I'll wait for you out here.”

Usagi's eyes widened and she felt a pang of fear shoot up her spine. “You're not coming with me?”

He looked at her like she'd asked him to accompany her to bathroom. “Usagi, this room is the deepest, most precious part of who you are. I shouldn't even be this close. No one but you is supposed to go in there.” He frowned rather harshly then. “In fact, if you ever see anyone inside your Velvet Room, you should kill them immediately and without hesitation.”

His intensity forced her back one step. “Ranma?”

The look on her face made him grimace. “Nothing,” he waved it off. “It's just… you hear things. Wizards are crazy, Usagi.”

“Okay, but–” She looked up at him shyly, like a rabbit peeking out of its burrow. “I don't mind if you come in with me.”

Ranma sighed. “I really shouldn't, Usagi.”

She sensed his hesitation and jumped all over it, like a panther on a wounded antelope. She clasped both hands together and with the most saccharine tone she could muster, said, “Please,” lengthening out the vowels until they were nothing less than the shaft of her emotional spear.

Ranma was pierced ruthlessly. Grimacing, he looked away from her and folded like a fresh napkin. “Alright, fine.” He pushed himself off of the white double doors and tapped one of the golden door handles. “Go on then, let's get this show on the road.”

He stared at her expectantly, and she hurriedly grabbed both door handles. All she needed to do now was to twist her wrists and the doors would open. Quite simple, really. She'd been opening doors since she was three. Nothing complicated at all.

“Uh, Usagi?”

There really wasn't anything stopping her. The doors weren't locked, she knew that instinctively. A small, insignificant application of force was all that separated her from the Velvet Room. As soon as she applied that force, the doors would open, and they would be inside.

“Usagi?”

Her hands were shaking, she realized. “Yes, Ranma?”

Her friend leaned against the door next to her, with his both hands behind his head. “You okay?”

She shook her head. “I'm scared.”

“You shouldn't be,” Ranma argued. “There's nothing in that room that isn't a part of you, Usagi. Don't you know who you are?”

“I'm not sure anymore,” she admitted. “Serenity… that name means something, but I can't remember where I've heard it before.”

Ranma raised an eyebrow and brought his hands down. “Does it matter?”

“Yes, it does.” That much she was sure of.

“Then, can you afford to turn your back?”

“Maybe?” She said. “I don't know.”

“Sounds complicated,” he said, commiserating.

She nodded morosely, bothered by the fact that her personal hang-ups were causing so many problems.

“Want me to bust the door open?”

She blinked several times, thinking it over. She had a strong feeling that she shouldn't open the doors herself. That it was Taboo. Something else had to do it, so if she just gave her permission…

And Ranma couldn't open the doors himself, simply because they weren't his to open. He would have to break his way in.

And yet, that fact bothered her not at all.

“So, as long as I don't open them myself, it's fine?” She mumbled. It felt like an oversight, a loophole of some kind… but what did she care?

She turned to Ranma and bowed her head in thanks.

“Please.”

[hr]


Ranma brought his palms down to his waist and took a deep breath.

The cracked and battered doors trembled in fear, grit and small marble fragments tumbling to the ground.

“Ha!” He shouted and slammed both palms into the doors. The white marble shattered into a thousand pieces and spread out like buckshot, leaving the angelic archway entirely unencumbered.

Ranma clapped his dusty hands together, forming brief lived white clouds. “Well, that was annoying,” he said, glaring at the empty archway.

“Really?” Usagi blinked at him, having thought the exact opposite seeing how the door crumbled in less time than it took for her to decide not to open it herself. “It looked easy to me,” she admitted.

“Doesn't mean it wasn't annoying,” Ranma countered. He presented the newly opened archway to her. “Ladies first.”

She nodded and warily approached the entrance, but despite her apprehension, nothing at all prevented her from taking that final step and passing into the Velvet Room. She felt no different once surrounded by its walls. Or wall. The room was a perfect circle, and didn't hold a single corner.

She stepped further into the room. At her feet, the doors' scattered rubble shrank and turned to vapour with a barely audible sizzle, the white smoke rising in thin trails, each disappearing somewhere between her knees and waist.

It was a Throne Room. The majestic seat was at the center of the room, held above on a three step dais. White marble, like everything else, with white and gold upholstery, and a long and slender back. It was the only piece of furniture in the room.

Aside from the throne, the room only contained five portraits attached to the walls. The entrance was at the six, with two portraits of young women at the four and eight, two more at the ten and two and the last, of a young prince, at the twelve facing her throne.

Usagi wandered closer, transfixed by her dance partner's portrait on the other side of the room. In it, he stood unmasked, and wore a suit of silver armor and a long, flowing white cape. His sword was unsheathed and he posed with it like a gentleman.

“Endymion.” His name flowed from her lips as a whisper. Her hand reached up, as if the bridge the distance between them. A pang of longing burst forth from her breast, and she bent over at the weight of it, curling into herself. The feeling was alien to her and she trembled in fear, shaking her head dizzily. “S-something's wrong!” She exclaimed.

She turned towards Ranma and found him completely unconcerned, staring at her throne with a inscrutable look on his face. “I'm surprised,” he admitted.

Her friend moseyed past her with his hands in his pockets. “Honestly, the decor is a dead give-away, but I'm still surprised.” He stopped next to the dais and shook his head, a wry grin on his face. “A throne room, Usagi? You? I never would have guessed.”

“W–what?”

She saw Ranma roll his eyes and tilt his head towards her, but before he could say anything, something seemed to catch his eye and he flinched, leaning away from the throne. “Ah!” He yelled. He held his hand up protectively before his eyes, as if he were blinded by midday sunlight. “What the hell is that?”

The marble throne sat quietly on top of its dais. Usagi shook her head. Her head felt fuzzy and everything was distant. “Ranma, what's happening?”

“Not the throne, Usagi. On top of it!” Ranma said, ignoring her question entirely. “Is that a crystal?”

She watched him squint and grimace as he tried to discern something she wasn't sure existed.

“The what?” He asked. “What's a Ginzuishou?”

A word. A title, a symbol, a crystal. The image flashed into her imagination, and suddenly it was there. A perfect white diamond floating over the top of the throne, bathing the entire throne room in holy light.

Usagi fell to her knees. She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her hands against her forehead, groaning in pain as something shifted and grew inside of her. It was painful, because that space hadn't been empty, and the new growth pressurized everything that she had been to make space for the new her.

Or maybe the old her, she realized slowly.

She heard the sound of footsteps and looked up to see Ranma looming over her. His hands were just about level with her eyes, so she couldn't help but notice how they firmed and clenched into deadly fists.

His blue eyes were cold and determined, like the Shogun's decapitator.

Her breath caught.

His fist swung.

The blow caught her in the forehead. Her head snapped back and pulled her body into an arcing fall. She hit the ground flat on her back and slid on the smooth marble floor like it was an ice-rink. The Velvet Room's circular wall welcomed her rudely and she grabbed at her forehead, favoring her newest ache.

“Ow!” She mewled and writhed on the floor. “That hurt,” she complained as her soft blue eyes filled with tears. The reality of the situation fell upon her quickly, and her eyes shot open with fear. “It's this place,” she muttered. It had to be. It made her all loopy, so maybe it had a similar effect on him! “Ranma!” She called out.

“Quiet, Usagi,” he said calmly. “Sorry I had to do that.”

His tone quickly put her at ease. She slowly sat up, taking care to avoid ruining her gown's skirt. Ranma stood tall a few feet from the dais in the middle of the room. With a sneer on his face, he crossed his arms and glared down at her.

Usagi felt her jaw slacken.

There, kneeling before Ranma, was another Usagi Tsukino.

“You don't know what you're doing,” her twin warned.

Her friend smirked right back.

“Sure, I do.”

Ranma Saotome swung again, and hit her twin right in the forehead. There was a flash of light and–

[hr]


Her ears were immediately filled with the roar of rushing water.

A fierce chill struck her like an arctic gale, and she burst into shivers. Her arms hurriedly wrapped around her naked chest to preserve both warmth and modesty, and her eyes shot open, blinking until they adjusted to the world.

The camp fire sputtered and spewed its last belching gasp of gray smoke, leaving nothing but glowing embers in the very bottom of the pit.

The stone mortar lay on to the ground, what little remained of the mixture soaking into the grass.

Ranma Saotome lay behind it, stricken.

Usagi immediately dropped her arms and reached out to him. Her friend did not respond to her careful nudges. She shook him harder and watched his head loll back and forth with no resistance, like a puppet with only one remaining string.

“Ah!” She yelped and let him go, like his cold, clammy skin burned to the touch.

She called out, “Ranma? Ranma, wake up.” Her voice carried an obvious undertone of terror, and she took a moment to calm herself down. She took a few panicked breaths, licked her lips and swallowed what little saliva remained in her parched mouth.

“Okay,” she muttered. “Something went wrong.”

It seemed like an understatement. Ranma had gotten into a fight with her twin, and she got the feeling that he hadn't gotten out.

She didn't even know what that meant. “Ranma's unconscious, possibly injured. H-he needs a doctor.” She stopped there, and bit her thumb as her unease surged. “Or… a witch doctor?”

Why didn't they ever talk about what they should do if something went wrong? She wailed in despair.

“Okay, okay,” she reasoned. “Even if I don't know what kind of… specialist he needs. It'll probably be best if I bring us back to the city…” She trailed off. Her eyes whirled around her, studying the shore on either side of her, snapping from one particularly large tree to the next.

It was pointless. None of them serviced as a landmark. The bleakness of her situation dawned on her, then, and she began to cry in earnest.

He'd taken her here. She'd journeyed alongside him, of course, but she hadn't been paying attention to the path they'd taken to get here. Not to mention the terrain she hadn't been able to cross by herself, the cliffs and the rivers that Ranma had simply carried her over.

Throughout this ordeal, all she ever had to do was walk. Every task or obstacle with even a modicum of difficulty was handled by Ranma.

A few minutes of desperate sobbing changed nothing, so she wiped her tears with her bare forearm and sniffed. “B-baby steps,” she told herself. “First things first, w-we need to get off this island.”

She glanced over at the suddenly rickety-seeming raft Ranma had built. It had handled the river's rage with ease, but she wondered how much of that was due to Ranma's stewardship. She bit her lip and threw that thought right out of her head, with a furious shake. There wasn't a choice here.

She scampered over to what now felt like her best friend. “Come on, Ranma,” she whispered gently, and put her arms underneath his armpits. She tried lifting him and managed to pull his upper body two feet off of the ground before her strength ran out and and fell to her knees, gasping for breath.

“Okay, okay,” she told herself. “I can do this!”

Usagi took deep, gulping breaths and small, steady steps, dragging Ranma's unconscious body across the dozen feet that separated him from the raft. “Come on!” She grunted as she lifted him higher and pulled him both on top of her and onto the raft.

She lay there exhausted, her arms wrapped around his chest in a weak embrace. “Probably should have put on a shirt first,” she said, gasping, as the unexpected skinship reminded her that neither her nor Ranma were wearing a top. “I'm kind of glad he's unconscious now,” she mumbled and immediately felt terrible about it.

Her eyes welled up with new tears. She'd take his vicious teasing gladly if he woke up now.

She wiped her hands across her eyes and nudged Ranma off of her. “Okay, give me a minute, Ranma, and we'll be on our way.”

Her discarded clothes were waiting for her at the middle of the island. She took a detour and pulled out of small towel out of Ranma's pack. She quickly wiped off as much of the green gunk as she could before putting her shirt back on. The zipper on her pink, hooded sweater reached past the halfway point before she resigned herself to the inevitable.

She sighed and swiftly approached Ranma's pack. Knowing what was to come, she bent down low, bending her knees to the max and took hold of the thick straps. “I can do this,” she told herself. A readying breath filled her lungs. It was now or never.

She threw herself back. The small momentum she'd gathered just up and died, swallowed up by this deceptive weight and she jerked to an immediate stop. “Gah!” It felt like trying to lift a car.

Her furious eyes pierced that nonsensical pack. She grit her teeth and kicked the damn thing out of sheer frustration. Obediently, it fell over with a clatter.

Blinking, she stared at the scattered sundries and miscellaneous packages.

“Oh.”

Only somehow, it wasn't that easy. Once she'd emptied the pack, it was trivial to carry it to the raft. Only now…

“How did Ranma pack this,” she asked herself confusedly, standing before the open pack. Her eyes told her it was full. The pile of stuff lying on the ground behind her told her that couldn't possibly be the case. At least a third of everything she'd taken out of the pack wouldn't fit back in.

She must have done something wrong, but she couldn't remember the order she'd taken the items out or the positions they'd been in, and the thought of doing it all over again made her grimace. She eyed Ranma, lying beside the stuffed backpack and shook her head. There wasn't time.

Usagi closed the pack and haphazardly piled the stuff that wouldn't fit onto the raft itself. It would be a tight fit, but they'd make it.

“Ugh!” She struggled and painstakingly shoved the raft into the water. Once buoyed, it took off a lot quicker than she'd anticipated, and she squealed. “W-wait!” She dashed after it, making a huge splash and getting her clothes and hair soaked in the process, but she climbed on and collapsed onto a pile of Ranma's clothes and belongings.

She stayed there, gasping for breath, feeling utterly miserable. A minute or so passed before she could even think about moving. She sniffed and wiped her nose with her soaked sweater's right arm. “C'mon, Usagi. Enough feeling sorry for yourself,” she wheezed.

She wearily climbed to her hands and knees and crawled her way to the raft's leading edge, climbing over the pack and Ranma's unconscious body to get there. Then, she swallowed her misgivings, plunged her arms into the cold river water and began to paddle towards the shore. They passed a cluster of trees. Then another. And another. Usagi rested her chin on the edge of the raft and continued to paddle. Her arms burned and started feeling less like limbs and more like piles of bricks. Still, she paddled on, the simple task numbing her tired mind.

Suddenly, the raft rocked beneath her.

The turbulence was like a slap to the face, and she pulled her head up, her eyes opened wide and clear. She noticed it off in the distance, a point where the blue of the river was drowned out by white, frothy water. “Rapids,” she whispered in disbelief.

Usagi gaped at the shore she'd been paddling to all this time, and saw that if she'd ever made any headway at all, it had all been swallowed by the inexorable tide pulling them towards the sea.

“Oh no. Ohno. OhnoOhnoOhno!” She wailed as she paddled for all that she was worth, pulling every ounce, every scrap of energy that she had left. Her raw throat twinged with every breath as her ragged gasps fuelled her effort. She paddled harder than she ever thought she could.

The raft made it twelve, maybe fifteen by the time they hit the rapids, less than half the total distance.

She screamed as the raft careened down the rapids. Her position suddenly felt a lot less secure and she ceased paddling in order to grab onto the hemp rope holding the raft together. Another bump nearly sent her rolling off of the raft. A headful of hair bumped into her knee, and she gasped. “Ah! Ranma!” She reached down and grabbed him with her right hand, and pulled him up even the raft tried its best to shove them both off.

She held onto his hand and screamed his name, hoping beyond hope that he would wake up and save them from this nightmare.

The raft suddenly shot up like a bucking bronco, and she was immediately unsaddled.

Her scream cut out the second she hit the water.

Beneath the surface, it felt like another world. The cold hit her like a haymaker, and she was numb.

She held onto her friend for dear life, didn't dare let go of his hand. She might be able to save herself if she did, swim to safety…

She wouldn't let him go. She couldn't. It wasn't in her.

Instead, she found the strength to pull herself closer to him. She wrapped her arms around his chest and held on as they drifted together.

“I'm sorry,” she thought. “I wasn't strong enough. I failed you, Ranma.”

Her eyes drifted shut. The end had arrived.

She thought she saw something for a second. Something bright, like the white moon in the middle of the night. Watching it with Ranma because she couldn't sleep.

Overwhelming light.

But just for a second. Absolute darkness ensued.

[hr]


A hand shook her.

“Wake up.”

Usagi turned away from that pestering limb and settled down for more rest. She was so tired…

“Come on, Usagi, wake up! I need to know what the hell happened?”

Despite her best efforts, those words penetrated her consciousness and triggered her recollection of recent events. Immediately, the trauma of her apparent death burned through her synapses and plugged her directly through to the panic hotline.

She screamed, and she thrashed about like a trout on a boat's floor.

A pair of hand settled on her shoulders and completely immobilized her. “Hey, hey, hey! Calm down! What's wrong with you?”

At first, the voice didn't even register. It was the strength that clued her in.

She opened her eyes and he was there, kneeling next to her, still in his blue swim trunks, looking incredibly irritated. “Usagi, where the hell's my stuff?” Ranma asked.

“Ranma?” Her eyes watered and spilled tears with abandon.

“Hey! What? No. Stop crying. I'm sorry, alright, I didn't mean to yell at you!”

Usagi ignored his apologies. She pushed past his hands, clasped onto him like a barnacle, and sobbed.

 

[chiku_b3.0]

Over-soul techniques. Are those an original idea? If so they're very interesting. Great dramatic tension during the raft scene. Usagi's city girl ineptitude really shined through, usagi was just trying to get ranma and his stuff onto a raft. But it felt like dan was fighting akuma and oro two on one with a blindfold and a broken arm. From the end of the chapter I'm guessing usagi and/or ranma now has access to her powers.

 

[lokinishizaki]

Over-soul is something I came up with in order to give martial artists' abilities a little more structure. I wanted there to be a huge, giant steel wall between martial arts and magic and that just wasn't possible without defining the limits of both. A more thorough explanation will appear in the next chapter. I'll do my best to make it as entertaining as possible.

I'm really glad you enjoyed the raft scene, considering it probably took the most effort to write. I really tried to properly convey Usagi's helplessness in that situation. Ranma makes light of mundane obstacles all the time, but for Usagi, something like a raging river or being stranded in the middle of nowhere is enough to kill her.

Anyway, I'm actually really excited now. The setup is complete. Now that Usagi can access her magic, the story can finally ramp up.

 

[shioran toushin]

The Road to Perfection
the Perfect Action (martial Arts)
the Perfect tought (Magic and the reason for why they are crazy)
The perfect belief/spirit (the Priest and why they are fucking insane and dangerous for everyone)

 

[Dumbledork]

That was interesting. I'm a bit lost right now, but I'm sure things will get clearer very soon.

 

[Deathwings]

So, did Ranma just sock Serenity in the face hard enough to split her from Usagi ?
If that's the case then yeah, Sailor Moon is going to be quite a different beast, alright.

And that's not even touching the fact that Chi and Magic are apparently completely incompatible, so becoming a Magical Girl is gonna be pretty hard, if not downright impossible.

 

[ringlhach]

Or she'll never actually get the hang of chi and be using magic instead, which is an old saw of its own. I have a feeling that, since Loki's saying that she's got her magic, she'll be at best a normal martial artist, though.

Or we could be completely wrong and they could work together just fine, but it's a bitch and a half to manage.

 

[PCHeintz72]

Or she'll never actually get the hang of chi and be using magic instead, which is an old saw of its own. I have a feeling that, since Loki's saying that she's got her magic, she'll be at best a normal martial artist, though.

Or we could be completely wrong and they could work together just fine, but it's a bitch and a half to manage.

I actually dislike the idea of only having one or the other... never made sense to me that one would interfere with the other, I've seen that kind of thinking ruin some good stories for me.

 

[Mithril-blade]

I actually dislike the idea of only having one or the other... never made sense to me that one would interfere with the other, I've seen that kind of thinking ruin some good stories for me.

There aren't bad tropes only tropes done badly. Making it so that magic and chi are exclusive to each other can work great to differentiate them and not run the risk of making one pointless next to one another.

 

[shioran toushin]

i think the Mentality to use the Higher forms of each 'art' is incompatible with the others, so you could be an anverage/mediocre jack-of-all-trades, extremelly good in one and mediocre in the other (which if you munchkin makes you very very dangerous and skilled) or a Monster in One.

and i don't think it's a thing of 'power' being incompatible but a mentality/philosophy thing instead, besides in most cases it's difficult to train Both Mentalities (or in RL two disciplines) and become a Master in them, unless you have enough time, discipline and mental flexibility.
you could combine them sure, but it would be something New, full of things that may or may not work.

 

[Stormfury]

Oh lordy everything about this makes me happy.

 

[Deathwings]

My favorite part was Ranma talking shit about monks and the whole Nirvana thing.

 

[shioran toushin]

"like Nirvana?"
"same Method, but we are going in the opposite direction"
"is not Dangerous?"
"i allows you to keep growing"
yep, awesome.

 

[wyldeakasha]

So... you're making Usagi and Serenity into two different people? Pretty sure that's not how it went in the series; it was more like Usagi recalling things she forgot rather than a separate persona overtaking her mind. I have to ask, because your answer will determine if I keep reading this - are you going by Fanon Sailor Moon rather than canon?

 

[PCHeintz72]

Eh... it is fan fiction. What does it matter as long as a believable backstory to explain it is given.

 

[lokinishizaki]

So... you're making Usagi and Serenity into two different people?  Pretty sure that's not how it went in the series; it was more like Usagi recalling things she forgot rather than a separate persona overtaking her mind.

That's an interesting interpretation.

I have to ask, because your answer will determine if I keep reading this - are you going by Fanon Sailor Moon rather than canon?

That question is difficult to answer, seeing as I'm not quite sure what your definition of 'Fanon' is, but the fact that you're asking the question seems rather telling.

I'll say this. As an author, my number one concern is this narrative. I'll put in the effort to make it entertaining, stirring and internally consistent. Basically, I'm asking you to trust that I know what a good story is, and that I know how to build one. 

I put a lot of time and effort into this. If you aren't even willing to read the story to figure out whether or not you'll like it, then you may as well stop now.

…And what the hell happened to all the quotation marks?

 

[wyldeakasha]

So... you're making Usagi and Serenity into two different people?  Pretty sure that's not how it went in the series; it was more like Usagi recalling things she forgot rather than a separate persona overtaking her mind.

That's an interesting interpretation.

I have to ask, because your answer will determine if I keep reading this - are you going by Fanon Sailor Moon rather than canon?

That question is difficult to answer, seeing as I'm not quite sure what your definition of 'Fanon' is, but the fact that you're asking the question seems rather telling.

I'll say this. As an author, my number one concern is this narrative. I'll put in the effort to make it entertaining, stirring and internally consistent. Basically, I'm asking you to trust that I know what a good story is, and that I know how to build one. 

I put a lot of time and effort into this. If you aren't even willing to read the story to figure out whether or not you'll like it, then you may as well stop now.

…And what the hell happened to all the quotation marks?

Telling? I suppose so - it's a huge peeve of mine.  I like Sailor Moon and I like reading crossovers; however, too frequently I find authors twisting Sailor Moon around (usually based on 'fanon' ideas such as Evil/Controlling/Manipulative Sailor Pluto/Queen Serenity/Neo Queen Serenity) in order to provide villainous antagonists.  Anyone who is familiar with the manga or either anime knows that those are really bad interpretations of the characters, to the point that they are essentially poorly done Expies (I'm leaving out the live action Sailor Moon because it took Princess Serenity into an entirely different direction - evil, vengeful, split personality bent on destroying the world).  With canon Sailor Moon providing so many good villains already, I have never understood the appeal of making the heroes into villains instead. 

I'm willing to follow along with your story a bit longer, see what develops.  But I am sorry if I come across as rude, it's simply that I have pet peeves and this is one of my bigger ones - hopefully I'll read through to the end.  We'll see.