My name is Link, and this is not my story, though it's one I'm well-familiar
with. Listen closely, because I will only tell you once.

In another time, another place, a man named Chris lived. There was nothing
remarkable about him, nor about the world in which he dwelled, by the standards
I measure such things. Then he died, and both his world and his existence
changed forever.

He found himself in a world like his own and yet unlike his own, a world that
was a hodgepodge of characters and events and objects and forces he'd thought
imaginary. Moreover, he found himself bodiless, a drifting spirit that inhabited
the bodies of the recently dead. In these bodies, he could take advantage of the
knowledge and skills of his deceased hosts, but only at a terrible cost. Every
move he made, action he took, thought he had caused the body he inhabited to
suffer unnatural decay, which took its toll on his mind as well. He could
survive only by finding new bodies to leap to, a situation that horrified the
still-human portion of him. Chris travelled to Japan, the home of many of the
people he 'knew' from his old life, hoping that a superhuman body could sustain
him longer than a mundane one, and that with the knowledge and power he found
there, he could halt the rotting altogether.

Of course, he could only do this by killing selected targets to take advantage
of their abilities, their positions, their knowledge. Of course they were
faceless, unimportant, meaningless people whose deaths meant nothing to the
world. Chris comforted himself by telling himself these deaths were horrible but
necessary, these deaths would be the last.

In Japan, he planned to take the life of Akane Tendo, a superhuman sufficiently
weak to be killed by the skills he had available, but found himself unable to
kill someone he saw as not only an innocent, but an innocent he was
uncomfortably close to knowing. But while his murder attempt was aborted by his
own end, it brought him into conflict with Ukyou Kuonji, who showed knowledge
that only Chris or someone else from beyond the world knew. Chris demanded to
know where Ukyou got this information, but Ukyou and her own otherworldly
companion refused to tell him the truth, angry and repulsed at what Chris had
become and his angry, desperate demands.

Chris proved he was not a person to take this hostile reaction lightly. He found
and successfully took the body of another martial artist, Kodachi Kunou, and
meticulously planned another confrontation with Ukyou where he would hold the
advantage. To do this, he kidnapped Akane Tendo, as well as her sister Nabiki,
questioning them. Akane pleaded with Chris to not fight Ukyou, whom she'd come
to think of as a close friend, but Chris was adamant that the Ukyou Akane
thought she knew was actually someone else entirely. Ukyou came to rescue her
friend as Chris had planned, and he defeated both her and her companion Ranma.
Even helpless, Ukyou and her companion Aaron refused to tell Chris the whole
truth, instead letting him believe that his friend Aaron was dead. Chris
accepted this and departed to find new solutions to his problem, freeing Akane
and attempting to mend fences with her before he left.

His travels took him to China, where his search for knowledge took him to the
Nyuuchezu village, where he spoke with Cologne, whom he considered to be wise
and learned. He bribed her with some of the information he knew about her world
from the comics he'd once read, as well as appealing to her native curiosity.
She told him that she could not help him directly, but told him of the Three
Circles of power. The First Circle: the realm of the physical, of the possible
(no matter how remotely so), and of chi. The Second Circle: the realm of the
mystical, of the impossible, and of sorcery and unworldly power. Neither Circle,
Cologne informed Chris, could possibly have caused his strange condition,
particularly since her well-honed senses could not detect any hint of chi or
magic animated the dead body Chris inhabited. She thus postulated the existence
of a Third Circle, a power even more profound than that of magic, and also mused
that someone, for some reason, must have caused what happened to him. Chris
thanked her, promising to repay her for her help in the future, and departed.

At this point, the body of Kodachi Kunou had lasted him far longer than any of
his previous ones had, and the urgency of his initial quest had dimmed somewhat.
Stung by the reactions he'd received from Ukyou and Akane, he wanted companions,
someone he could make a positive impression on, even friends. This is where I
begin to matter, for it was I that he chose to approach. At that time "I"
consisted of two people, myself and a doppleganger named Pink - though neither
of us knew which was real and which the shadow. Chris believed the duality of us
to be twins, as did most others. At that time, our great shared passion was
revenge upon Shampoo, a girl who had tormented us for most of our life, and who
was also Cologne's great-granddaughter. Chris gambled that he could win us over
by offering to assist in our defeat of Shampoo, rationalising his actions to
himself by thinking we could help preserve his body with our skills in
herbalism. As it turned out, we were pursuaded, though I was extremely
reluctant, a fact that makes me laugh now.

It was not enough, however. Though Pink took well enough to Chris, I barely
tolerated him, and since Pink was an unsubtle sociopath, her acceptance
initially made Chris bemused and uncomfortable. Again he returned to the side of
Akane Tendo, attempting to make what he felt was a reasonable request. Akane,
however, rebuffed him harshly in her lingering fear, which had two interesting
lingering effects. Akane, a soft-hearted sympathetic girl, felt bad about
hurting Chris, despite the fact she had every reason to hate and fear him.
Chris, for his part, starting brooding on how such a soft-hearted girl could
possibly hold a grudge against him.

This disgusted Pink, who had been thrilled with the power Chris had shown in
defeating our enemy Shampoo and obliging her to serve us in restitution for her
torments of us over the years. She had quickly figured out that Chris really
didn't want or need our help so much as our companionship, and had quickly begun
to enjoy the thought of having such a powerful protector. For my own part, I was
less enthused, but it's simple honesty to admit that I also took advantage of
the opportunities offered by Chris, while still despising him personally. Pink,
however, wanted to find out more about Chris and thus get him more firmly under
her thumb. She seized upon an opportunity to read his journals - with Shampoo's
unwilling help - and found out far more than she had ever expected: the truth.
That Chris came from beyond this universe. That, to Chris, we were nothing but
figments of someone's imagination. That his seemingly preternatural knowledge
about everyone of consequence and future events was merely his recollection of
comics or video games or cartoons. She revealed this triumphantly to Chris, as
well as our own duality. Chris, realising how dangerous Pink could be, was going
to kill her. But she had caught him in a trap of rather admirable brilliance for
someone as tactically inept as Pink: by revealing our origins, she had let him
now that by killing her, I might very well also die. And Chris, rather than risk
the death of "innocent" me, talked himself into believing Pink was really
harmless.

That was seven years ago, and even now, thinking of it makes me laugh and laugh.

Around the same time, Chris finally succeeded in winning Akane over to "his
side", initially through telling her the truth as he saw it: that Ukyou was
using Akane, manipulating her to be out of the running for Ranma Saotome's love.
He convinced Akane that he was seeking redemption, got her assistance in saving
the Sailor Senshi from the malevolent entity Chronos, and finally got her
promise to travel with him and serve as his "moral compass" after a second
violent encounter with Ukyou had terrified his little soul. Akane got Chris to
promise never to kill anyone in exchange for her aid, which she no doubt thought
was a very meaningful gesture. Of course, by the time she had, my other half had
already killed her first replacement body to present triumphantly to Chris.

We travelled for some time together. At first too naive to really understand the
depths of my other half's disregard for anyone other than herself, the two
quickly grew openly hostile after Pink murdered a second body for Chris: a young
boy with the power of a god also, amusingly enough, named Chris. By this point,
Pink had used Chris to gain herself significant power and was increasingly...
erratic, a fact I myself nearly missed due to my increasing fascination with the
nature of this strange, contradictory, impossible world we lived in. Both Akane
and I nearly paid dearly for underestimating her, but an unlikely saviour
emerged in Shampoo, who "killed" Pink by breaking the mystical connection
between us, causing her to fade from existence screaming for help right before
Chris's eyes. He attempted to save her with his stolen power, and almost did,
but his belief in the possibility of what he was doing faltered and she
vanished, affirming my reality.

Chris, again, proved to be vengeful. He hunted down and butchered Shampoo,
getting around his promise not to kill by forcing her to commit suicide rather
than do the deed himself. He did this in front of the helpless Akane, who turned
away from him in horror and disgust. Thus, in a single stroke, Chris lost both
the woman who had loved him, and the woman he'd sought for so long to earn the
love of. But after his initial vengeance, he reacted with considerable calmness,
immediately setting out on an overarching plan to bring about what he called
"the perfect possible future". In essence, while Chris was certain his
connection to the Third Circle made him a god, he didn't wish to rule as one, at
least not openly. Instead, he intended to surreptitiously overthrow the great
powers of the world one by one, and subtly encourage a climate of conflict and
great deeds, which would inspire people to become independant and powerful,
overthrowing tyrants themselves without need for Chris, but always with his
watchful eye making sure the "heroes" never lost to the "villains" at any time
where all humanity lay in the balance.

Of course, to bring about this world, an enormous amount of people would have to
die. While I had by then chosen to throw my lot in with Chris for reasons of my
own, his promise to Akane not to kill hampered his ability to bring about the
future. Thus, while consolidating his power in many other ways, he also rescued
a certain girl, Angel, whom his otherworldly knowledge assured him had great
potential. He then carefully molded her, physically and mentally, for the task
he had planned for her. He cared for the girl, but always at a distance,
cultivating in her mind the godlike image he wished for her to hold of him. He
arranged for her to train with many powerful masters, unlocking her potential
and turning her into a daring, aggressive swordswoman with an uncanny awareness
of her environment. He built her up to believe that he had chosen her from some
great task, and let her dangle long enough without knowing what that task was
that the task became nearly as mythical, in Angel's eyes, as Chris himself. By
the time he revealed the truth to her, Angel so firmly believed that to serve
Chris was not only a great cause, but the only cause worth serving, that she
fell into line as his assassin despite every personal reservation she had
against it, tossing aside loyalty and friendship in order to serve as an
instrument of Chris's perfect possible future.

And where was I? Unimportant to this discussion, and really, none of your
business. Suffice it to say I continued to serve Chris for my own reasons, and
do to this day.

Chris, in the last year, has been busy indeed. Through means unknown even to me,
he has created an unliving doll, a frightening thing of emptiness and chaos
named Kalia, whose likeness he whimsically appropriate from a character that
does not exist (something which is, frankly, rather appropriate). As well, he
moved to help the reemergent Ukyou and her friends defeat the tyrant M. Bison -
by killing a strategic someone, of course. And then he unveiled an even grander
plan, luring the vampires of Millennium into open war with France, allowing
France's counterstrike to destroy Millennium, and simultaneously destroying the
source of France's superweapons and killing everyone in France with both power
and ambition. His plans were almost foiled by a joint plot between his old ally
Cologne and the mastermind of France's superweapons, Agito Makashima, but Chris
turned the tables and killed Agito, defeated Cologne utterly, and also defeated
the Chronos zoalord Frederick Von Purgstall when he tried to rescue her. Only
his long-ago made promise to Cologne to repay her for her help stopped him from
having his doll kill Cologne, Purgstall, and those irritating brats that
followed them around, but he nonetheless achieved every goal he'd set out for
and walked away to pursue even loftier goals.

Only about half of the great powers of the world Chris pledged to destroy
remain, but they are arguably the strongest: the United States and its allies,
Chronos, and the Dark Queen Tethys and her domain. The latter of which, Chris
now has set his sights upon, and has brought myself, Kalia, and Angel along to
bring about Tethys' demise, as well as dealing with some secondary threats to
him in the form of Hotaru Tomoe the so-called Death Messiah, and Nabiki Tendo.

That is the past, which you should all know.

The future? Well... that's something you're just going to have to wait and see.



                              C&A Productions Presents

                          A Work of Blatant Self-Insertion


                                   Hybrid Theory


                             Chapter 27: Meteora


	She came awake with a scream.
	Her body was shaking, covered in a sheen of cold sweat. The fur blankets
she slept under had been thrown off the bed and all the way across the room.
She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, shivering
in the quiet for a time.
	"Just a dream..." she told herself. The words sounded hollow, like dust
in her mouth. She smiled a little. What would the world think of her now,
quaking in her bed like a frightened child? She was Tethys, Queen of Darkness.
She had stood up to Arkanphel, Millennium... the best and the worst the world
had to offer without batting an eye.
	And she was scared. Scared of one slip of a girl.
	They said her eyes were black and the shape of lotus flowers now, but to
Tethys they would always be grey. Cold, emotionless eyes. Staring straight into
her soul.
	"When you look back on this day, remember that the only reason you still
live, is because I CHOSE to let you do so."
	The words rose unbidden from the depths of her mind. She remembered
vividly lying sprawled on the concrete floor of the ocean cathedral, her body
still spasming from the electrical current Ukyou had nearly killed her with. The
current that would have killed her, had Ukyou not pulled her free of the source.
And still she would have died had the part of her that was then Hayato not
intervened, not refused to die.
	They had beaten her. Together, the two of them had been more than Ukyou
was. But she had somehow reversed it, somehow won. Worse, she had won without
even needing to use her miracle power. Their defeat had been utter, humiliating.
	Not again. Tethys wasn't that person anymore. She and Hayato were one
now. He was her and she was him. Together they had defeated Beryl. Together they
had defeated Metallia. Together they had faced down forces that could crush them
like ants, and emerged the victor. With no miracle power. And now, they would
destroy Chaos, the very force of conflict itself.
	Tethys was not afraid of Ukyou any longer. She sneered in the silence of
her private bedchamber. The bed she hadn't shared with anyone since... since...
Tethys shook her head, discarding that thought. What was important was that this
was her chamber. This was her world. Her kingdom. Her rules. Ukyou would come to
her.
	She would come because of the Messiah. Ukyou would chase her to the ends
of the Earth. Well, this was the end of the Earth. The cold, bitter end. Even
the Messiah had found it impossible to break her security, to fight her way to
the heart of Tethys' power. Of course, Tethys could have crushed the girl at any
time. Not easily, perhaps, but she was certain she could win. But to destroy the
Messiah before she had drawn Ukyou to her was a waste.
	No, Ukyou would come to her world. And then, Tethys would have her. She
would come with her friends, with Ranma Saotome the great warrior, with Nabiki
Tendo the queen of the underworld, with Sailor Pluto who had served Tethys
loyally for two years...
	With Akira.
	Tethys started.
	There had been a sound. She was certain of it.
	She spun, looking around her bedchamber. It was dark, the light was
diffuse, purple and black shadows turning everything into a looming monster. She
stood up slowly, gesturing and shaping a weapon out of random moisture in the
air-
	Cold steel pressed against her neck. Cold steel held from behind her.
Tethys froze. Her heart skipped a beat. That cold emotionless voice whispered
into her ear from a hair's breadth away.
	"You were stronger then, and faster then. You had more tricks than me
then. You were my superior in every way. But I won." The voice cut through
Tethys' courage like the cold steel weapon Ukyou held against her throat. "And
you made one mistake. You chose the wrong person to hurt. Nobody treats my
friends like that."
	Tethys felt the blade cut through her and it was terrible and cold. It
was the utter lack of heat. The utter lack of life. The end of everything.
Oblivion itself tore at her soul. Her body spun as it dissolved into blue
sparks, fading away into the nothing from which her soul had been summoned so
many millennia ago. She looked up one last time into Ukyou's shadowed face, and
her cold grey eyes.
	She came awake with a scream.
	Tethys looked around her room. Well-lit. Her body was warm, perfectly
dry. Her blanket rested comfortably in her lap. She snarled and cast it aside.
	She was sick of fighting dreams.

*

	Akane found Mamoru standing alone in one of the fields behind the
school. The place was full of rose bushes. But even now, they were dying. The
cold was getting to them. The icy chill of winter had settled down on the city,
blanketing each morning in a glittering fog that sunk through your clothes and
sapped the heat from your bones.
	"Hey," she called, stepping up beside him. He was holding a red rose
between his fingers, worrying it back and forth so the blossom constantly
shifted. She looked down and frowned. The thorns had dug into his fingers,
leaving little trails of blood down the length of them. She tsked and grabbed
the flower, tugging it free of his nerveless fingers. "Damn it, Mamoru. You hurt
yourself."
	"Sorry..." he murmured in response.
	Akane stared at him, trying to summon up the will to be angry. Marz had
died over a week ago. He had to get over it, to move on. Except how could she
yell at him about that? It wasn't like any of them had moved on, or done
anything, since then. She had come out here to give him the pep speech, the same
one she had given far too many times since she had agreed to lead these people
seven years ago. But now the words felt like dust in her mouth.
	"I should have been stronger," Mamoru said finally.
	"That's stupid and you know it," Akane snapped. "You've trained as hard
as anybody. You did all you could. Ikazuchi killed her. You have to remember
that."
	"But we're responsible for that." He looked up at her now, his eyes
ringed in dark circles.
	"No, we're not!" She grabbed his lapel. "Chronos killed her. Chronos
killed all the people in this town. She died trying to save lives. Don't you
DARE dishonour her memory by giving up now!"
	"That's not true, Akane."
	Akane stiffened and turned around slowly. The figure standing at the
edge of the rose garden was short, beautiful in the same way a porcelain statue
was. But her skin had a healthy glow, and there was a warmth... a sad kindness
in her eyes that made Akane's blood run cold just in comparison. Her long blonde
hair trailed out behind her as she walked towards the two of them. She wore
armour of burnished silver, inlaid with gold, almost fancifully thin and molded
to the form of her body. In her wake Akane could see the rose garden visibly
revive. Wilting flowers straightened, darkened petals grew vibrant.
	"Princess..." Akane breathed, almost without meaning to. She bowed her
head. To her side, she could just see Mamoru staring at the vision before him,
his eyes sparkling with... more life than Akane had been able to get out of him.
	"You should apologise, Akane," the vision asked, her voice clear and
bright. It was the tone of voice a forgiving mother used on a naughty child.
	"I... I don't understand..." Akane stammered.
	"This, none of this, should have happened." The Moon Princess walked up
to her. "I understand, Akane." She placed a gauntleted hand on Akane's shoulder.
The metal was warm, soft. Akane found herself straightening, growing more
cheerful just to be worthy of that touch. "You have been lost and alone, without
guidance for many years. You have struggled against the darkness and as all
things mortal must, you have fallen back so that you would not be consumed." The
Princess leaned forward and whispered into her ears. "I forgive you, for all
your sins. You may rest now."
	Akane felt as if her heart would burst. She wanted to cry. It was like
all the pain, all the misery of the last seven years was flooding out of her.
Every dead friend, every bloody battle, every murder and every failure... they
were a sick knot, a tight ball of sickness in the centre of Akane's gut. It had
grown, bit by bit, moment by moment so slowly that Akane didn't realise she had
even been filled with so much pain until it was suddenly gone. The Moon Princess
smiled at her, the golden crescent on her forehead flaring as the years of anger
and struggle and hate left Akane. It left her standing there, awed, renewed,
refreshed...
	Drained. Empty.
	Akane staggered back, suddenly clutching her forehead. She felt the
familiar throb of the Star Seeds in her vest pocket, beating like a heart
against her chest. The Moon Princess frowned, just slightly.
	"You still carry around a heavy weight, Akane," she said, smiling again.
She offered her hand out, palm up. "I could lift that burden."
	Akane instinctively grabbed the pocket, the fabric straining. Her eyes
widened. "No. No. It's my burden to bear."
	"Very well. But we shall talk of this again," the Princess promised.
Then she stepped back and gestured for Akane to follow her. "I believe you
wished to speak with me?"
	"I... what?" Akane stumbled and followed along in the silver-clad
vision's wake. Somehow, she felt twenty years younger around this girl. Like she
was a toddler trying to keep up with her big sister.
	"You came to Ohtori, confronted my friends, destroyed Akio's machine,
and started us on this path so that you could talk to me." Akane could only nod
mutely. "I'm sorry I haven't been able to talk with you until now. My work keeps
me very busy. You will, however, be glad to hear that I have pushed the zone of
safety out another fifty kilometers. Three more nearby towns now come under my
protection."
	"I see..." Akane looked around. They were starting into the city proper
now. The buildings were still mostly ruined. The charred remains of the fire,
the shattered bricks of the road; Akane forced herself to look at it all. At
least they'd removed the bodies. "Do you know why we came here?"
	"I've talked with Luna about it," the Princess answered calmly. A group
of young men, working to remove a shattered car from the road, spotted them
approaching. At first, they just stared slack-jawed. Then, nearly as one, they
fell to their knees. Akane could hardly blame them. The Moon Princess had saved
them from hell with a single stroke. The Princess managed to conceal a brief
look of pity, then allowed the full force of her beatific smile to come down on
them. She brushed each of their shoulders with her fingers, whispering a small
blessing. The men stared at her, their eyes shimmering with tears, until Akane
lost sight of them.
	"Don't think I wasn't aware of the troubles happening in the outside
world, Akane..."
	"Troubles! Is that what you call it?"
	Akane turned sharply, the Princess following more sedately. The woman
walking down the street towards them was clad in golden armour, and her blue
eyes flashed as she stalked towards them. Her hair snapped behind her as she
marched up to the pair. Rei was walking behind her, trying futily to pull her
back by one arm. The armour-clad girl shook off the fire Senshi with a snapped,
"No, now IS a good time, Rei."
	"Ah. Sailor Venus," the Princess said with a small nod of her head. "I
was hoping I'd get a chance to talk to you during this lull in the crisis."
	"My name is Minako," the girl snapped.
	"May I call you Mina?"
	That took Minako back. She stared at the petite blonde. "My name is
Minako Aino," she repeated.
	"I see." The Princess bowed. "I am Princess Serenity, but my friends
call me Usagi."
	"Princess," Minako said, bowing stiffly.
	Serenity sighed, a look of motherly disappointment crossing her
features. "You obviously have something you need to say. Why not get it off your
chest? Unless you wish to speak privately..."
	"No," Minako snapped her hand down. She glanced at Akane and Rei.
"Anything I have to say, they can hear."
	"Go ahead, then."
	"Where were you?" Minako growled.
	"I thought that was the problem." Serenity shook her head slowly. "I had
more pressing matters. There is a great wound in the land of drea-"
	"Don't give me that bullshit," Minako cut her off. "Artemis and Luna
have already talked a great deal about that. I overheard." The golden champion
stepped forward, until her armour almost touched that of the Princess. "You
didn't find out about that until two years ago. Where were you until then,
Serenity?"
	"She was gathering her strength!" Rei broke in suddenly. "She needed to
learn how to master her powers. Back then, we were just children. Stupid. Weak."
Rei pulled Minako away from the Princess and forced her to look the other Senshi
in the face. "In case you don't realise what we are, we are the Sailor Senshi.
Our JOB is to protect the Princess. Our JOB is to defend her. It's not our place
to doubt her!"
	"I'm capable of fighting my own battles, Rei," Serenity said, her voice
carrying the first trace of true authority that Akane had heard all day. Rei
looked at her, and backed up a step. "I would repeat what Rei said, but she has
most of it correct. I was marshalling my strength. The world would not be served
by me dying in a fruitless battle."
	"Fruitless?" Minako stared at her. "What about the lives that would have
been saved?"
	"What about the lives that will be lost if we fail?"
	For a long time the street was quiet. Akane looked back and forth
between Minako and Serenity. She... wished she knew what to think. Her first
reaction was that Minako was obviously wrong. How could she know? She hadn't
been there. She hadn't been there to see Usagi gain her full power. She hadn't
been brought back from death itself by this slip of a girl. She had no
understanding of what Akane had felt, what she had touched out there beyond the
edge of life. Akane had brought something back, something profound, something
great.
	Something huge and awesome.
	But...
	"There's no point yelling at each other," Akane said finally, stepping
between the two. "We can argue about what the past was until the sun sets, but
that won't change anything. Whatever it was that happened then was then. We
should deal with now."
	"Yes, of course." Serenity smiled at her and Akane felt a little like
genuflecting herself in the presence of this saint. "You always were wise beyond
your years, Akane. Let's us talk about what the future holds. Perhaps you can
start with telling me about our old friend Chris..."

*

	"What time is it anyway?" Ranma muttered, pulling his blanket a little
tighter around his shoulders.
	"Six thirty-three a.m.," Pluto responded idly, sipping a cup of tea
between her hands.
	"You sure?" Ranma asked, frowning up at the dark sky overhead. Pluto
looked at Ranma for a long moment. Ranma blinked. Then chuckled nervously and
rubbed the back of his head. "Right. Eh-heh. I guess you would be."
	Ukyou leaned back against the rock they were using as shelter. A smile
played over her lips as she watched Nabiki teasing Ranma for his blunder. Sailor
Pluto allowed Nabiki to rib the boy a bit without much in the way of comment.
But she had a sort of quiet way of saying things in a sincere tone; little
things that, when you looked back at them a few seconds later, you realised were
really rather humorous or sarcastic.
	This was... nice.
	The five of them had started this journey northward on a dour note.
Nabiki, of course, was worried desperately about Ryouga. Ranma, for his part,
was equally worried about Minako. Apparently she had gone missing a few weeks
ago in America. Just up and left without telling anyone. Ukyou privately
suspected it had something to do with the massive battle between zoanoids and
'insurgent forces' on the coast of Japan. The battle that had ended when a dome
of silver light had sent every zoanoid fleeing.
	Pluto had been down because she had been leaving her friend behind. But
Rose needed to stay in Bangkok. Without her there, the people of the country
could not begin the slow process of healing. Ukyou herself had felt a sort of
melancholy about leaving what was the closest she would ever come to a daughter
behind.
	Oh... she was still biologically capable of bearing children, she
suspected. But...
	Akira walked into camp just then. Ukyou had known she was coming long
ago, but even so seeing her here, right in front of her, was comforting. The way
that the first thing Akira's eyes rested on were Ukyou, the way the tension in
the girl drained away a little bit now that she could see Ukyou herself, it made
Ukyou feel... strange. Warm and comfortable.
	Whatever it was that was between her and Akira now, it was different
than what she had felt for Ranma. Her love for Ranma had been... consuming,
demanding. It had burned in her veins. But Akira seemed to demand less of her.
Or her feelings for her did. It was confusing. It was weird. It kept Ukyou
constantly off balance.
	Ukyou rather enjoyed it.
	"Did you find anything?" Pluto asked.
	"No," Akira replied curtly. Pluto didn't frown or otherwise react, she
just took another sip of her tea and nodded, as if expecting nothing less.
	"Strange. Shouldn't we have run into some youma patrols by now?" Nabiki
said, stirring their small fire with a stick. They had been forced to provide
their own firewood for the last few days now. The tundra was irksomely clear of
anything resembling useable firewood. Still, there were ways to overcome such
limitations when one had supernatural powers to throw at the problem. "We're
pretty close to the edge of Tethys' territory now. Tomorrow we should hit the
glaciers." She frowned. "Then a long walk across the icecap."
	"It's just a little cold," Ukyou commented.
	"Easy for you to say," Nabiki groused. "Some of us don't have martial
arts techniques to keep the cold at bay." She fingered her bulky jacket. "We
have to rely on good old-fashioned goretex."
	"We should have run into somebody by now," Pluto abruptly brought them
back on topic. "Usually by now we'd have gotten some swift transportation..."
	"Something must be stopping them from coming this far south," Ranma
said.
	A silence descended on the camp. Akira took this opportunity to sit down
next to Ukyou. She had passed on her motorcycle leathers and gone with some fur-
trimmed pants and a jacket the colour of deerskin. She looked over and started
when she realised Ukyou was staring at her. A flush crept up her cheeks.
	"Would you stop that?" she asked, softly.
	"No." Ukyou smiled.
	"This isn't really the time..." Akira murmured, looking nervously around
at everyone else. Nabiki was making a point of examining her nails. Pluto was
busying herself with the teapot. Ranma was shuffling his feet and idly doodling
on the wall of the ravine with his finger.
	"Okay." Ukyou shrugged. "But, you know, if we're going to be a couple,
there has to be a time when it is okay for me to stare at you."
	"We can talk about this. There are things we have to talk about, but...
just, not now... okay?" Akira murmured.
	Ukyou frowned and sighed. "Okay, Akira."
	"Thank you," the girl murmured again. Ukyou knew she would have to have
a nice long talk with the girl about this relationship they had going. Ukyou
supposed that a large part of Akira's shyness, her reluctance, had to do with
being Japanese. Ukyou had seen this with a lot of the girls she knew, growing
up. Always doing everything but actually confronting their emotions. She smirked
a little and chuckled to herself. Not that she had any right to talk,
considering how much she and Aaron had repressed their 'feminine side'. Still,
Ukyou would have expected the girl to be more open about her feelings. Instead,
she seemed... afraid.
	Ukyou knew it was stupid to try and delay it. Tomorrow, either one of
them could be dead. They didn't live the kinds of lives where you could act like
shy schoolgirls, always inching around your actual feelings and blushing and
worrying about the smallest little bits of intimacy. Plus, Ukyou knew that Akira
was in special danger.
	Because she was close to Ukyou. She was one of those people Ukyou cared
about. Ukyou looked up, into the night sky. It was always night, this far north.
The stars were a brilliant sea. Was that were it was? Beyond the stars? In the
dark between?
	"Who are you..." she whispered to the night.
	"Excuse me?" Nabiki asked.
	"Nothing..." Ukyou looked at her. "Just... contemplating what I have to
do."
	Nabiki looked at her. She slumped slightly. "Ukyou, you know why we
haven't encountered any patrols, right?" Ukyou didn't answer. "She killed them,
Ukyou. She kills everything in her path."
	"I'm not here to fight Hotaru," Ukyou said, her voice strained. They had
gone over this before.
	"She's going to want to fight you," Nabiki insisted. "You know, the only
thing keeping her from killing the whole world is the fact that YOU have the
Silence Glaive. Without it, she can't channel the Silence completely. She can
only make little deaths. But if she pulls that thing away from you, she'll wipe
out the entire planet."
	"You're probably right," Ukyou replied, helping herself to some tea.
	"You were willing to kill your child to stop Bison," Nabiki pointed out
coldly.
	"I was." Ukyou agreed. "But this isn't the same. Hotaru... I know this
isn't her. I KNOW it. I... I spent time with her, Nabiki. I watched her laugh
and cry. I watched her mourn and celebrate. And, in the end, I abandoned her.
Hotaru isn't a monster like Bison. She's a hurt child."
	"Seven years ago, maybe," Nabiki snapped. "But now? Do you have any idea
how many people she's killed?"
	"Lotus Infinite killed a lot of people, too," Ukyou pointed out. Akira
flinched. Ukyou didn't react, but she did note the reaction with interest.
Something else they would have to talk about. Unfortunately, Akira had avoided
any chance of the two of them talking together alone since the night of the
party.
	"That isn't the same," Nabiki retorted.
	"It's exactly the same," Ukyou insisted. "We both became the pawns of
monsters. Akira and you saved me. I will save her."
	"Pawns?" Nabiki frowned. "So you still think there is somebody else out
there?"
	"I know it, Nabiki," Ukyou insisted. "Me and Chris, we're part of...
something. A plan. Our enemy hasn't shown itself. We don't even know its name.
But it's using Hotaru. It's using her because of what she means to me. It WANTS
this battle. Well, I'm through running away from it, and I'm finished playing
its game. I will find a way to save Hotaru, and defeat it."
	"How?" Nabiki asked bluntly.
	"Whatever it takes," Ukyou said calmly.
	"You sound just like Chris," Nabiki snorted.
	"Maybe he and I aren't so different after all." Ukyou shrugged.
	"Would you two stop it?" Akira asked gently. "Listen, we can't know what
we'll do until we do it. So why waste time arguing?"
	"Keeps the heart pumping and the blood flowing," Ukyou replied with a
little smile.
	Ranma chuckled. "On that note, who wants to get in a little sparring
match before we start out again for the day?"

*

	The cold was bitter, this far north. They say it was the kind that sunk
into your bones, but they lied. By the time you got this far north, you could no
longer feel your bones. The wind howled across the icy plains, driving straight
through the thickest coat like it was morning mist, ripping the heat out of your
body and sending it spiralling away into the icy wastes.
	An empty featureless plain, endlessly dark, stretching in all
directions.
	They had made their way up the glaciers without much trouble. Between
the three martial artists and Pluto's own powers, getting up the sheer ice walls
of the frozen north was child's play. They had made it all the way up here,
without once encountering a single youma. Not so much as a scout, seen at a
distance. Between Nabiki, Ukyou, and Pluto, they should have been well aware if
anything came anywhere close to them. But there was nothing.
	"That's it," Pluto said, pulling her coat a little tighter around her.
She had to shout to be heard over the roar of the wind. Everyone squinted and
shielded their eyes, staring at the hazy object in the distance. It looked like
a mound growing out of the ice, a black thing the shape of a coffin lying on the
ice shelf. And it was still several dozen kilometers away. The thing had to be
gigantic.
	"That mountain?" Ukyou asked, frowning. She was wearing nothing heavier
than her good old-fashioned trenchcoat. Though, in a concession to the weather,
she had switched from a skintight outfit to something more masculine and
concealing. She had also taken to wrapping cords around her ankles, to prevent
the snow from slipping into her boots. Nabiki wouldn't have noticed it, except
that Sailor Pluto had spent a long time staring at Ukyou's feet while she was
doing that.
	"Yes. That mountain is the surface portion of Tethys' kingdom," Pluto
explained.
	"But it runs deeper than that?" Ukyou crossed her arms. She was the only
one here who didn't seem to mind the cold. Ranma, surprisingly, was having the
most trouble with it. For a guy who had just fought and defeated Bison in a
spectacular aerial battle, he was surprisingly clumsy when it came to walking
across ice.
	"Much deeper." Pluto looked at Akira for a moment, and the brunette
looked away pointedly. "Almost a mile deep." She looked down. "We're probably
already over the outskirts of the city."
	"City?" Ranma said, his teeth chattering slightly. "Great, an entire
city full of people we have to fight..."
	"No, Ranma, most of the people who live in the city are..." Nabiki
trailed off. Her mouth fell open, the cold air stealing the moisture from her
throat in seconds. She brought her hand up to her chest, trying to calm the
sudden beating of her heart.
	He was here. Beneath. Within the city.
	"Nabiki?" Ukyou looked concerned. "Are you okay?"
	"I..." Nabiki looked at Ukyou, then away. The woman had a way of knowing
things, so best not to give her more hints than necessary. "I'm okay. This damn
cold is just getting to me, is all."
	"The air is very comfortable inside," Pluto informed her. "We'd best
start walking. It's still several hours away at our current pace."
	Nabiki opened her mouth, then closed it. She looked around at everyone.
They were staring at her. Each looked concerned, in their own way. Even Sailor
Pluto was frowning slightly.
	"I'll be fine..." Nabiki croaked. "I just... this city. It's full of so
much darkness."
	"You feel it too?" Ukyou murmured.
	"Yes. All the monsters that live here. Their minds are... inhuman.
It's very uncomfortable." She took a deep breath. "I think I'm going to need
some time to get used to it. I'm still recovering from my fight with Bison. I
don't want to rush into anything."
	Ukyou frowned. "I don't think it's a good idea to wait. Aside from the
cold..."
	"I'm not suggesting you wait," Nabiki snapped. "You should go on ahead."
Ukyou raised an eyebrow, gazing at Nabiki levelly. "Tethys is waiting for you up
ahead. If you don't come to her, I'm certain she'll come to you."
	"So she already knows we're here..." Akira sighed.
	"Of course she does. She knew the moment we started across the ice
shelf. Probably before." Nabiki snorted. "You know how far her reach extends,
Akira. Not to mention how..." Nabiki trailed off when Akira stared at her
darkly. She didn't have to read minds to know what that look promised if she
didn't stop. Nabiki closed her mouth and looked at Ukyou again. "Besides, we
both know it's you she wants to talk to. Ranma and I are just not as important
to her."
	"Hey," Ranma grumbled.
	"No offence, Ranma," Nabiki smirked.
	"Hmmm..." Pluto tapped her toe against the ice. Her long green hair
snapped and cracked in the wind behind her. "Perhaps Nabiki is right. Tethys did
send Rose and me back into the world to invite you to meet her. I don't believe
you have anything to fear from her."
	"You WOULD say that," Akira snapped. "Tethys is a monster. She has no
humanity left in her at all." She looked at Ukyou imploringly. "We should avoid
her."
	Pluto, who looked slightly offended at Akira's rebuke, turned to face
the other woman. "I think you're letting your personal feelings taint your
reactions, Akira."
	"I don't have any feelings for Tethys," Akira hissed.
	Ukyou was looking at Akira strangely, but she stepped between the two of
them quickly. "Cut it out, you two. You've been doing nothing but snipe at Pluto
since Southtown, Akira. And you have tried to kill me repeatedly, Pluto. So
neither of you are exactly winning me over by arguing like this."
	Akira looked chagrined, bowing her head and looking away when Ukyou
chastised her. Pluto, for her part, merely let her ubiquitous frown emerge again
and resumed tapping her foot. Ranma was sitting nearby, scrawling something on
the ice with his foot.
	Ukyou walked closer to Akira and placed a hand on her shoulder. "This
city, this is where Hotaru is coming, Akira. I HAVE to come here. And I'm not
going to do it like a thief in the night. For all I know, the reason Hotaru is
coming here is to kill Tethys..."
	"And you want to warn her, is that it?" Akira snapped suddenly, pulling
away from Ukyou and knocking her hand off with a swipe of her arm. "You don't
know Tethys, Ukyou. Not like I do."
	"How do you know her?" Ukyou asked softly, so low that Nabiki cold
barely make it out over the roaring wind.
	Akira blinked, then looked down and clenched her fists. "I..."
	"That isn't important," Pluto said suddenly, stepping between Ukyou and
Akira. "Tethys has made many enemies, done many immoral things over the years.
Akira has every reason to mistrust her, and me for that matter."
	Ukyou seemed taken aback by Pluto's sudden defence of Akira, as did
Akira herself. Finally Ukyou sighed and nodded. "Okay. We'll deal with that
later. For now, we need to go introduce ourselves." Ukyou looked over her
shoulder at Nabiki. "I'd really like you along for this one, Nabiki."
	"Don't quite trust Tethys... or Pluto?" Nabiki asked wryly.
	Ukyou smiled back. "Believe it or not, Nabiki, just having you nearby
makes me feel better. Your refreshingly honest hatred of me gives me a sense of
perspective."
	Nabiki couldn't help but chuckle. "No. I don't think that Tethys wants
to speak to me, or Ranma. Why don't the three of you go on ahead?" Nabiki looked
at Akira directly. "I'm certain there is a lot you have to talk about without us
around."
	"Huh? Since when am I not going?" Ranma asked.
	"Since you're not about to leave me defenceless and alone in the middle
of an arctic wasteland?"
	"No offence, Nabiki, but you're about as defenceless as a polar bear."
	"Ranma, do you ever open your mouth except to put your foot in it?"
	Ranma blinked. She grabbed him by the wrist and began to drag him away
from the others. "I'm surprised Minako never taught you the rules, Ranma."
	"Rules?"
	"For dealing with women," Nabiki said. "Rule one is, don't compare a
woman to a giant, fat, hairy animal."
	Nabiki looked over her shoulder. Ukyou had paused for a moment, then
began to walk towards the mountain in the distance. Nabiki kept dragging along
Ranma, until she was certain they were out of even Ukyou's phenomenal earshot.
She released him, making him stumble a bit as he tried to catch his balance on
the ice.
	"Okay. Now we need to find another way into the city," Nabiki informed
him.
	Ranma blinked. "But you said..."
	"I lied," Nabiki told him.
	"Lied?"
	"Listen, Ranma. We're too late."
	"Too late?"
	"Yes. Hotaru is already here. She's in the city below."
	"Shit! We have to tell Ucchan..."
	"No. We do NOT." Nabiki slid up on her toes to face Ranma eye to eye.
"Ranma, you've been around for the last seven years. You KNOW what Hotaru has
become."
	Ranma fidgeted. "Yes..."
	"How many people have died because of her?" Nabiki drilled into him.
"Not just the ones she's killed personally, but all those that have been killed
in her name. That sycophantic cult of oblivion. You've fought them more than
once, haven't you?"
	"And I always won..." Ranma muttered.
	"That's right. But Ukyou isn't ready to face this. She hasn't had seven
years to get used to the idea, like you and I have. Hotaru may look like a
little girl, but she's a killer. She has to be stopped."
	"And you want us to do it?" Ranma sounded doubtful.
	"We have to, Ranma," Nabiki hissed. The she smiled. "Besides, you're
Ranma Saotome. The best there is. Who defeated Bison? Ukyou?"
	"No..." Ranma was preening just a little bit. Nabiki knew now was the
time to go in for the kill. His pride was always his weak point. With his mind
distracted, he would never even see the knockout blow coming.
	"And don't you have to make up for what you LET happen to her, Ranma?"
	Ranma's mouth snapped shut and he stared at her. It was a dark, angry
stare. "That isn't fair, Nabiki."
	"I'm not being fair."
	He ground his teeth and nodded. "Fine. But we're only going to see
what's happening. Not even I'm stupid enough to take on the Death Messiah by
myself..."

*

	"So... how do we get inside?"
	Pluto lifted her hand from the black pyramid. It was huge, larger by far
than the pyramid of Giza, more grand still than anything the Aztecs had built.
It was nearly large enough to be called a mountain. The cold wind snapped and
cracked around it, breaking on its sharp corners and buffeting in all
directions. Snow and ice, driven by the wind, whipped around them.
	Not for the first time, Pluto wished her uniform came with a pair of
pants.
	"Technically there is only one entrance," Pluto said, turning to face
Ukyou. "Tethys is paranoid. She keeps its exact location secret. There are
rituals that can attract its attention, allowing one passage into the city
itself. Or Tethys can allow you to enter, if you don't know those."
	"So, you work for her, right?" Ukyou leaned against the pyramid, not
seeming to notice the numbing cold radiating from it. "You know the way in,
right?"
	"I used to," Pluto said with a shrug. "But... I just tried summoning the
portal, and got no response."
	"Changed the locks on you," Akira muttered.
	"Akira... I know you don't trust me. After what happened you have every
reason not to, but..." Pluto trailed off. She could understand why Akira was so
angry at Tethys. After what had happened between the two of them, Pluto was
hard-pressed not to call the youma queen the kind of monster Akira claimed she
was. What Pluto didn't understand was why the girl hated Pluto herself so much.
	She had protested against the plan from the beginning. She had tried to
do something, anything to save the refugees.
	Ukyou chuckled, either missing or no longer paying attention to the
words being exchanged between her companions. "I bet I know what she wants."
Ukyou pushed off the pyramid and turned around. She extended her arms, her coat
snapping behind her. "Fine, Tethys. You want me to ask, I'll ask. Please let me
in."
	The reaction was almost instantaneous. The black pyramid began to
shimmer, a great sound like the hiss of steam escaping from a million kettles
roaring forth. A rainbow of lights formed in the reflective surface before them,
and then a second later it was gone. Instead there was a tunnel leading off into
darkness. The sound died instantly. Ukyou lowered her arms and shook her head.
	"Man, we are all such drama queens..." she muttered before starting into
the tunnel. Akira hesitated a moment, waiting at the threshold. Then she frowned
deeply and crossed over forcefully. Pluto came last, not bothering to look back
to see the portal close behind them.
	The walk took only a few minutes. It was just long enough that even
someone of Ranma's speed would have trouble sprinting it before someone at the
other end could react. At the end they stepped out into light again, walking
forward onto a platform of blue-black ice, ringed on the other three sides by
short safety rails.
	And out below them, stretching for kilometers in all directions, was the
City of Black Ice. They were at the apex, their heads barely meters beneath the
ceiling of the cavern in which the city stood. The cavern itself was a pyramid,
stretching down and down and out, three great walls rising around the city until
they reached this point. The walls were traced with a galaxy of lights,
flickering pinpricks of light, in every colour of the rainbow, shimmering and
shifting like the aurora borealis. It kept the city in a state of perpetual
twilight, giving it an eerie quality of always standing on the cusp of...
something.
	The 'city' itself could hardly be called as much. It was really a series
of interconnecting structures, fluid and organic with shapes that looked eroded
and worn away rather than chiselled or carved. The entire thing resembled
nothing so much as a brobdingnagian coral reef, connected by tubes and whirling
nautilus shell patterns with great gaping caverns and rifts. Directly beneath
them was the Great Rift. Once, it had been the heart of the Dark Kingdom, the
dark abyss into which Queen Serenity had cast the rebels thousands and thousands
of years ago. Now it was a three-hundred-meter-across gap in the city, a pit of
darkness full of bubbling lights whose colour had never been described in any
human language. Steam, thick and slow, rose from that abyss. Huge ducts and
valves lined the edge of the pit down into the heart of the city, siphoning away
the steam to provide heat in the distant edges.
	Here and there, Pluto could see tiny shapes moving along the tops and
sides of the massive interconnected structure. Humans, looking from this height
to be barely larger than ants. The refugees that Tethys had collected over the
years. Those who had pledged themselves to her service.
	"There are so many of them..." Ukyou mused, leaning over the edge, not
caring a bit about the many-story drop beneath her.
	"Tethys takes the ones who have nowhere else to go," Pluto informed her.
"Those driven from their homes by Millennium or Chronos. And not just from this
world, either. The struggle between light and darkness extends beyond just this
planet. Tethys has found people from all across the galaxy and given them
refuge..."
	"Like hell," Akira snapped. "They're puppets. Things for Tethys to use
and discard with as much care as..." She floundered, trying to think up a
suitable reply.
	"Hotaru is down there," Ukyou replied softly.
	"She is?" Pluto blinked. "How? Nobody should have been able to get in
without..."
	"My permission?"
	"I was wondering when you'd make an entrance," Ukyou said with a smirk.
She rose up and turned to face the Queen of the Dark Kingdom.
	Tethys was wearing one of her more risqué outfits. It was the colour of
the ocean at midnight, with a faint silvery sheen as if moonlight rippled across
her body. It was a one-piece dress that ran from neck to ankle but which clung
so tightly to her torso there was no need for a neckline. The dress was slit up
one side nearly to her hips, and her long legs were clad only in a pair of black
pumps. The dress was sleeveless, but she wore opera gloves of the same colour
that came most of the way to her shoulder. Her only jewelry was the tiara with
its golden crescent-and-lightning-bolt symbol that she always carried on her
somewhere. Her long blue-black hair hung over one shoulder and she smiled at
Ukyou, standing casually in the centre of the platform.
	"It's been a long time, Ukyou," Tethys said, her voice unreadable.
	"I wish I could say the same," Ukyou replied. She looked over at Akira.
The other woman was looking down, her cheeks flushed and her fist curled into
fists. Her body was literally vibrating with repressed emotion. Pluto was
surprised that Akira hadn't already attacked her.
	"Ah, yes. Your amnesia," Tethys said with a chuckle. "Trust me, you
aren't missing much. The last seven years have been boring without you around."
	Ukyou opened her mouth to reply, then closed it. She took a deep breath.
"That's enough. I don't have time to exchange snappy banter with you, Tethys."
Ukyou quirked her head to the side. "Or is it Hayato? Huh. Now how did you pull
that off?"
	Akira snapped her eyes up, looking at Ukyou dumbly. Pluto too, stared at
her. What was Ukyou talking about? From the look on Tethys' face, she had said
something meaningful.
	"Just a trick we picked up," Tethys informed her blithely.
	"I see..." Ukyou shook her head. "Let's get everything out in the open,
then. You know why I'm here, right?"
	"You're after the girl," Tethys said with a nod.
	"Good. Now. What I want to know is why I'm here." Tethys raised an
eyebrow at Ukyou's statement, and the girl explained, "Why are we talking,
Tethys? Is this a trap? Is this still about what happened between us seven years
ago? Or is it something else? Am I supposed to believe that you've become one of
the angels while I was..."
	"Was killing women and children as Bison's toy?" Tethys said with a
sneer. "No, Ukyou. I don't care what you believe about me." Tethys walked
towards the edge of the platform, and Ukyou stepped aside to give her room.
"Frankly, your opinion of me doesn't matter one whit." She reached down and
placed a hand on the rail. There was a sound like crystal cracking, and suddenly
the ground underneath Pluto lurched. She realised that the platform was now
drifting, separated from the wall and buoyed by Tethys will. "But if we're going
to be frank, then yes you are here for a reason. You're going to give me
something I very much want, Ukyou."
	"Why?" Ukyou asked defiantly.
	"Because if you don't, Hotaru is doomed."

*

	It was strange, the kinds of things you think about when you were
waiting to die. Cologne had once read that there were five or six stages people
went through when they were going to die. She couldn't remember what they were,
but sitting there in her cell, she decided they were all bullshit. She was
pretty certain the first one was denial, and she hadn't gone through that. She
had known that the moment she took Frederick back to Chronos that she was not
going to walk out of their clutches again.
	The only question, she supposed, was if they would give her the honour
of a clean death, or if they would violate her body and soul and turn her into
one of their living weapons. Either way she would be dead.
	Her eyes were closed as she meditated, but she knew the dimensions of
her cage. It had metal walls, metal bars. She knew about these cages. The walls
were over a meter thick and made out of solid steel. The bars were made of one
of those new 'super-alloys' and were much too close together for anything larger
than a kitten to squeeze between. It was a cell designed to hold people much
stronger and more potent than Cologne. For good measure, there were two hyper-
zoanoids stationed outside.
	Cologne hadn't so much as gotten off the bench in the cell for anything
except retrieving the food they gave her and personal needs. If she had wanted
to escape, she would not have come here. She needed to stay, because if she fled
there was a chance they would not do anything for Frederick.
	He had been breathing. His body had been so cold, but he had been
breathing. He was so still. His eyes had stared upward at nothing until Cologne
had closed them. It was like his soul had been ripped out with his zoacrystal.
But he was alive. So Cologne had brought him to the one person that might be
able to save him. And she would sit in this cell and accept whatever punishment
they required of her if it meant he would live.
	"...don't think she's listening."
	"Try again, then."
	Cologne frowned. Words were sinking through her deep meditation. But she
shouldn't be hearing them. Because if she was hearing them, people had not
listened to her.
	"Hey, old hag!"
	"Nope. Still nothing."
	"I saw her face twitch!"
	"No you didn't, that was just her normal face twitch."
	"Oh."
	Certainly they wouldn't be here, Cologne reasoned. She must be
hallucinating. Over a week in this cell and she was beginning to lose focus,
lose touch. She was experiencing wishful thinking. If she didn't open her eyes
and...
	"OLD HAG! WAKE UP! THIS IS NO TIME TO BE TAKING YOUR OLD PERSON NAPS!"
	"Oh! That time her face definitely twitched!"
	"Hmm. I must need to be louder. VesVes, could you get me a megaphone?"
	"What the hell are you doing here!?" Cologne shouted, leaping to her
feet and stalking over to the bars. The Quartet smiled at her. Cologne's eyes
immediately moved to PallaPalla. She was dressed the same as always, but was
looking much better than she had the last time Cologne had seen her. The colour
had returned to her cheeks and the life to her eyes. In fact, she looked more...
alive and happy than Cologne remembered her ever having been.
	"We're busting you out, obviously," VesVes said, crossing her arms and
smiling.
	"Are you insane?" Cologne snarled. "Wait, don't answer that." She held
up a hand. "What part of 'never go back to any Chronos facility' did you not
understand? I know for a fact that I told you it one hundred times. I counted. I
also explained it one hundred times. I made certain even PallaPalla knew what I
meant."
	"Well..." CereCere shrugged. "We waited a few days for our injuries to
heal. You know, just hiding out..."
	"We hardly even had any fun!" JunJun felt the need to point out.
	"And certainly didn't almost blow up Iceland," VesVes said.
	"How can a place called Iceland have so many volcanoes anyway?" CereCere
complained.
	"Girls..."
	"But they had the best hot springs!" PallaPalla noted happily.
	"Oh yes. There was this one place, the water was so hot you weren't even
allowed to be in it for over five minutes," JunJun added.
	"All we wanted to do was stay in longer. It isn't our fault that by
diverting some of the heat to..."
	"GIRLS!"
	The Quartet came to a stop and stared at her.
	"Can we get back to why you're here?"
	"Oh, right. We're here to rescue you."
	"I told you not to come for me."
	"But..." PallaPalla looked at her, her eyes seeming to grow larger. They
quivered and shimmered with unshed tears. "We missed you!"
	"Meaning you had nowhere else to go," Cologne pinched her nose and
sighed.
	"Well, that too..." CereCere said. "But we really did miss you."
	"Never mind. You have to leave, now." Cologne glanced at the
hyper-zoanoids that had been guarding her. There were garlands of flowers around
their necks, and they looked very peaceful slumped against the wall together.
Cologne had to imagine the one without the spikes would regret the situation
later, however.
	"Sure." VesVes held up her orb and spiralled her hands around it. It
floated forward, growing as it did. When it hit the bars it was the size of a
door, and it vanished in a flash of red light, along with an equal amount of
bars. "Let's go, old hag. We'll just go pick up Mr. Purgstall and..."
	"I can't leave," Cologne told them. "You have to go."
	"But..."
	"I tried to explain this to you before. But you four are in danger
and..." Cologne trailed off. She snapped her head up, her eyes widening. "Leave!
Now!"
	"But..."
	It was already too late. The door opened, and in walked the one man
Cologne wanted to see least of all. His wrinkled face was sporting a rictus
smile that didn't reach his inhuman eyes. He was wearing a grey suit, with a
black object that Cologne couldn't seem to focus on attached to his hip. The
Quartet looked at him. Then they did something that made Cologne blink.
	"Oh, hey! It's Mr. Gyro!" PallaPalla called, waving.
	"Hey, are you being mysteriously nice or blatantly evil today?" JunJun
asked, also smiling.
	That seemed to slow Gyro down. His face twitched, but he smiled. "DEAR
girls..." he said in his husky baritone. "I am your friend. I thought I already
proved that to you."
	"What do you want, Reichmann?" Cologne asked, tensing herself. He wasn't
transformed. Maybe if she struck fast enough she could give the girls time to
escape. He had contemptuously swatted her the last time, but he had been in
battle form and she had been carrying around eighty extra years.
	"Cologne, I'm shocked at your hostile... reception," Gyro's lips
tightened, a hideous parody of a smile. "Who do you think has been arguing for
leniency in your case? Who has been convincing the council not to just kill you
and your... traitorous patron out of hand?"
	"Hey, that's uncharacteristically nice of you!" PallaPalla said
approvingly. Once again, Gyro twitched, but he continued.
	"I have been waiting for your... girls to show up." He gave a
dramatic sigh. "Because I want to help you and Purgstall, but I can not."
	"What do you mean?" Cologne asked.
	"Purgstall is dying. Slowly but surely, despite our best efforts.
Without his zoacrystal, his injuries will kill him." Gyro tapped the black
object at his hip. For a moment, Cologne thought she could see... a sword? No,
it was much too small... or was it? She was having trouble focusing her eyes
again. "Arkanphel can not restore him. Not so long as his zoacrystal is damaged.
Whatever... cracked the crystal did a very... irreversible job."
	Cologne felt a shudder run up her spine. She saw the Quartet similarly
blanch. The memory of that girl made her skin crawl.
	"The difficulty is not the damage, but what was left behind in the
crystal..."

*

	"The question you have to ask yourself is, how much are you willing to
do to save the life of one girl?"
	The platform floated over the city, slowly. The people below paused to
look up. Some pointed and shouted, others merely lowered the brim of their hats
and moved along. Ukyou gripped the rail of the platform as she looked down among
them. Not everyone down there was human.
	A few were obvious about it. They looked like any other youma. Bright
colours, flamboyant outfits, and exclusively female. But others were not so
blatant. There were seemingly regular people down there that Ukyou could feel
the demon inside of. She and Aaron could sense the dark energy wrapped in and
around their souls. When Hayato and Tethys had first formed their strange union,
Aaron's senses had not been nearly so good as they were now. But he believed
that they must resemble very closely what the two of them had once been.
	How could they stand it? Two voices in one body; it was the nightmare
Aaron and Ukyou had lived for... one year? Seven? Except there were differences,
of course. From the way Pluto and Akira had described it, the unity that those
in the crowd with human and youma souls had was... voluntary. Ukyou could not
even begin to comprehend the mindset that would lead one to do something like
that.
	Much less what Tethys and Hayato had apparently done. Their presence,
their soul... it was neither human nor demon. It wasn't blended together, or
patched into one body. It was a strange unity. There was no way to separate out
what she had once been. Whatever unity those two had achieved, it was so
profound that there was no going back.
	Was that what would happen to them, some day?
	Ukyou found that the thought did not frighten her as much as it once
did.
	"Ukyou?" Tethys frowned.
	"I heard you, Tethys," Ukyou replied. "The question just didn't merit a
response."
	The platform dipped down below the top of the city. They slid into one
of the giant gaping caverns, the huge organic cave that existed between the
interconnecting 'buildings' of the City of Black Ice.
	"Don't be flippant with me, Ukyou," Tethys snapped. "I'm talking about
something serious."
	"The question is meaningless, Tethys," Ukyou insisted. "I don't know
what I would be willing to risk to save Hotaru. I love her. I love her as much
as I did seven years ago. It tears me up inside, to think of her suffering. I
want to say I would do anything to stop that. But I can't. Because I don't have
that choice now, Tethys. I can't know which way I'll decide until the moment I
make that choice."
	Ukyou noticed Akira look away at that. Of course, Ukyou would have had
to be blind not to see the tension between Tethys and Akira since she had gotten
here. There was a sense of... something shared, something intimate between them.
The hatred that radiated from Akira was so crisp and clean, it focused her chi
so sharply that Aaron couldn't help but feel it. It raised a frightening,
protective... jealous feeling inside of them.
	Tethys, for her part, looked mildly annoyed with Ukyou's answer, so
Ukyou continued, "Why don't you cut the sales pitch and give it to me straight.
What do you mean that Hotaru is doomed?"
	Tethys paused. "Very well." She looked up at Ukyou. "There is a fight
going on here, Ukyou. A fight that is taking place on a whole different level
than the ones even you are aware of. There are forces in this universe, primal
forces older than mankind. They would tear the universe apart. Chaos. Oblivion.
Other things for which we don't even have names."
	"Go on..."
	"We are the pawns of these forces, Ukyou." Tethys gestured off to the
side and Ukyou turned to see a group of youma walking by. They were laughing and
joking, until suddenly they ran into a group of young human men. Ukyou tensed as
the two groups paused in the middle of the skyway they were crossing. "Do you
know how youma are made, Ukyou?" Ukyou shook her head.
	"You take a human being, and you rip out a portion of their soul. It
could be their dreams, their hearts... it doesn't matter. You mutilate their
very spirit, and you pour magic into the hole inside them. That is what it takes
to create a youma, to create one of my kind."
	"Then those..."
	"Yes. They were once human. A long time ago, when we first invaded the
Moon Kingdom, we were human beings. An army. Then, when we were banished here by
Serenity, Metallia... remade us. She made us demons, to better serve her needs."
	As Ukyou watched, one of the humans made a comment, which made the other
humans laugh. Then the youma joined in. Soon, they were all laughing, and they
went their separate ways,
	"Pawns. Made to fight. Made to die." Tethys' voice filled with
bitterness.
	"By Chaos," Ukyou replied, drawing on Aaron's memory. "Metallia was a
child of Chaos, wasn't she?"
	Tethys smiled thinly. "Yes. I'm not surprised. You always did know more
than was healthy for you." She gestured. "Chaos created us. Not directly, but it
was the will of that black beast that set us in motion. Our only purpose was to
feed its sick hunger. Hunger for conflict. Hunger for struggle and hatred."
Tethys clenched her hand into a fist. "But if we ever won, it would end the
war. So we were built flawed. Sick and damaged, in the very soul. We lacked that
human spirit which allows us to... to struggle on, like humans do. So when human
champions rose against us, we always lost.
	"I'm going to change that. I'm going to end the will of Chaos." She
looked around, her voice growing more satisfied. "This is my prototype. Humans
and youma, living together. Working towards peace, together. Merging together.
Becoming more than what they were. This is my defiance against Chaos."
	"This is nice, but what does it have to do with me or Hotaru?" Ukyou
asked.
	"Because Hotaru is the same as me, a puppet." Tethys looked around. "She
is as much damaged as I was. Her master is Oblivion, but it is no less dangerous
than Chaos. Perhaps even more so.
	"I could destroy her, Ukyou." Ukyou tensed, her fingers curling as if to
grip a weapon. "Oh, don't overreact. I've spared her life thus far. I withdrew
my sentinels from her path. I allowed her to 'sneak' into my city. I know
exactly where she is at all times, and I know exactly what she is looking for.
Her powers do not concern me. She needs to touch me to inflict her Silence on
me, and other than that she is just a vampire. A being that draws its power from
blood." Tethys gestured and a globe of water condensed in the air in front of
her. "I am not too worried about one whose power is based on a liquid."
	"No, I spared her because I sympathise. I want to save her, just like
you, Ukyou."
	"I can't stand this anymore!" Akira shouted, stepping between the two of
them. "Don't believe any of her lies, Ukyou!"
	"Akira, Akira..." Tethys shook her head. "I think you're letting our
past interfere with your feelings towards me."
	"Feelings? FEELINGS!" Akira stepped up to her. "What would you know
about feelings!?"
	Tethys leaned forward, placing her face just in front of Akira's.
"Everything you taught me, Akira."
	"Akira...?" Ukyou stepped towards the taller woman. She looked at Pluto,
but the green-haired woman refused to meet Ukyou's gaze.
	"Oh, didn't she TELL you, Ukyou?" Tethys purred, looking up past the
brunette. "About the time we shared together?"
	"Shut up..." Akira whispered, too low for anyone but Ukyou to hear.
	"I suppose it's easier for your relationship if she doesn't bring up the
messy truth, isn't it?" Tethys mused. "Better to believe she is the faithful
one. The one who never faltered, not even for a minute. The one who never gave
up on you. It's so easy to believe that. So SIMPLE."
	"Shut up," Akira said, her body shaking.
	"But seven years is such a long time, isn't it?" Tethys stroked a hand
along her cheek. "And she is only human. She has needs. And even she can't
maintain the faith forever. It was so simple... just an offered hand, in a
moment of weakness... you'd be surprised at how GRATEFUL-"
	"SHUT UP!" Akira screamed, and suddenly Tethys was slumped against one
of the rails, her head twisted to the side. Akira was standing, her body still
curled in the follow-through of her punch. Her breathing was ragged, her eyes
wide and shaking. Ukyou knew she should say something, but she was... shocked?
Yes. She was probably in shock, she realised dimly.
	"Did that make you feel better, Akira?" Tethys asked, standing up. The
bruise on her face faded, vanishing without a trace by the time she reached her
full height. "Punching me won't change what you did."
	Ukyou looked at Pluto again, and this time the woman did meet her gaze.
It was sad... pitying. It was true? Akira and Tethys...
	But...
	But...
	"Makes you think about what else Akira hasn't told you? Like how she
erased your memory of the last seven years?"
	"Erased..." Ukyou blinked.
	"How do you..." Akira gasped, then looked at Ukyou, her expression
stricken.
	"No, Ukyou. I may be a monster, but if I am, so is she," Tethys stood
up. "The difference between me and Akira is that I realise that I have to be a
monster. That I will make a better world, a world with no place for monsters
like myself."
	"Akira... is this..." Ukyou tried to find something to say.
	"I know you rely on her, on her faith, Ukyou. But you're relying on a
lie." Tethys snorted. "The truth is that the world is harsh and cruel. Even
Akira knows this. She was once willing to make the sacrifices necessary to save
the world, to put an end to Chaos. She was my greatest ally. My most trusted
lieutenant.
	"She once even killed a thousand people for me."
	Akira gave a small cry and stumbled away as if struck. Tethys merely
smiled. "So, Ukyou. Who do you trust? I've never lied to you."

*

	"I can't believe her!" Rei shouted, smashing her fist into the wooden
wall. It made a satisfying cracking sound that echoed around the small room, but
now her hand hurt. She began to pace, trying to hide her hand behind her as she
shook it to chase away the shooting pains.
	"Can't believe who?" Akane asked. She was sitting on the floor, holding
the two halves of her sword, frowning at the fracture that had neatly bisected
it. She was still wearing that black bodystocking under her otherwise more
normal skirt and blouse combo.
	"You know who I mean," Rei growled out. "Sailor Venus."
	"I think she prefers to be called Minako," Akane replied, holding up the
blade to her eye and sighting along it. She sighed. "It's hopeless."
	"Damn right she's hopeless!" Rei spun to face her. "She's given up
everything that the Sailor Senshi stand for!"
	"I meant repairing my sword, actually." Akane placed the shattered
weapon beside her. "A dear friend of mine gave me this sword."
	"Akane-"
	"You met her, I think." Akane cut Rei off. "She was a pigheaded,
arrogant girl. One who almost never had a kind word for anyone. Frankly, I think
if we hadn't met how we did, we never would have been friends."
	"What does this have to do with anything?" Rei said, forcing her voice
to be civil.
	"We were brought together by Sailor Moon." Akane let that sink in for a
moment. "And then she died, fighting for something she believed in. At first,
she fought because of stubborn pride, but I like to believe that at the end, she
fought because she realised that some things are worth fighting for. That the
risk, that the cost... whatever that may be. That it's worth it somehow."
	"I..." Rei tried to think of something to say, but couldn't.
	"However she went about it in a stupid fashion," Akane admitted
ruefully. "She gave up her life... and in the end I have to wonder if what she
did made any difference at all." Akane looked up at her. "But SHE believed it
did. I don't know why she chose to give up her life that day, fighting a battle
she couldn't hope to win. I'll never know. And there are days I curse her for
it, and days I thank her for giving me courage."
	Rei rubbed her forehead and sat down. "So what are you saying, Akane?"
	"I don't know..." Akane admitted. "I was just telling you a bit about
this sword." She held up the hilt and the section of blade still attached to it.
	Rei felt her eyebrow twitch. "So, do you agree with Minako or not?"
	"I don't know her, Rei." Akane held up her sheath and she experimentally
slid the half-blade into it. She shook it a few times and noted it stayed.
Apparently that was good enough for her, so she put it down. "I don't know what
kind of life she's had." She looked up at the other girl, her eyes narrow. "But
don't think she doesn't have reasons for what she believes in. I've heard about
her, Rei. She was there in England, seven years ago when Millennium killed
almost everyone. She's been fighting the good fight for the last seven years."
Akane smiled. "If you think she's annoying, pray you never meet her boyfriend."
	"Boyfriend?"
	"A more annoying man you will never meet, Rei." Akane said. "A macho
hero type. The kind of guy who thinks that there isn't any problem he can't
solve by punching it hard enough. The infuriating part is how often he's right.
He and I have had a couple of major arguments over the years. I think his way of
doing things is reckless, directionless, with no long term goals and no chance
of accomplishing anything meaningful in the long run. He thinks I'm too cautious
- in his words, a 'pansy' - and that I'm willing to lose by inches rather than
risk everything at once."
	"Sounds like he doesn't understand how much there is to lose," Rei
pointed out, crossing her arms.
	"Maybe," Akane shrugged. "I don't know anymore, Rei." She looked out
the window. "I don't want to believe that life is like he says it is. I want to
believe that there is something greater. That there is a world that can be
better than this one, and that together we can go there. But seven years I've
been fighting to bring about that world, and it just keeps getting further and
further away. It makes it hard to believe."
	"You have to have faith," Rei told her, grabbing her hand impulsively.
"Sailor Moon can do it, Akane. We can't doubt."
	"You're right, but..."
	"But?"
	"Hasn't this all struck you as... odd, somehow?"
	"What do you mean?"
	"Do you ever get that feeling, Rei? That feeling like you know what's
supposed to happen? Not definitely, but it's like that old game of hot and cold.
The closer you get to it, the more you can feel it? It's like the true future,
the correct future... it CALLS to you. It stirs something inside you."
	Rei paused. "Yes."
	"You do?" Akane looked surprised.
	"I feel it all the time, Akane." Rei looked down. "I dream about it,
sometimes. Or I used to. All my dreams lately... they've been full of darkness
and they feel so WRONG. Like something is eating away at them. But in those
dreams, I always felt a light. A light of hope. I knew that if we could just
find it, that everything would turn out okay." Rei stood up suddenly, clenching
her fist. "That's what pisses me off so much! Minako can feel it too. You can
tell! Ever since we came here, I've felt like this was RIGHT. That this is the
way it's supposed to happen. I thought it was Akio, but now that his machine is
gone it only feels STRONGER."
	"Yeah," Akane sighed and slumped. "I've felt it too, ever since you
rescued me and took me to Katsuhito's shrine. Ever since I met Washuu. Like this
is how it is supposed to go."
	"So, what's wrong, Akane?" Rei frowned. "If you know, down in your
heart, that things are going okay, why are you fighting that feeling?"
	Akane didn't answer for a long time. She got up slowly and walked to the
window and looked out over the still mostly-destroyed city. The wind blew
through her shoulder-length hair and she adjusted her hairband to keep her bangs
out of her eyes.
	"Rei... has Washuu ever done anything... strange?"
	Rei raised an eyebrow, then chuckled. "Akane, everything Washuu does is
strange."
	"No, I mean..." Akane floundered for a moment. "Ever since you started
working against Chris. Has she... been acting strangely?"
	"You'll have to be more specific," Rei pointed out. "She's been a lot
less silly since then. Not totally, but more focused." Rei paused. "Sometimes
she scares me. What Chris did... what ANGEL did, it was very personal to Washuu.
It was personal to me too, and to Katsuhito, but Washuu took it the worst of all
of us. When she found out, she just sort of... went blank. It was like she
couldn't even see us. Then..." Rei shuddered, remembering the ominous feeling of
presence, the overwhelming sense of being near something so profound it made her
entire body scream to be away. Even remembering it now, years later, Rei was
still afraid of that Washuu. That Washuu who had seemed less a human being, and
more a god. "But she got over it. She's just been very focused on getting to
Chris."
	"Right..." Akane rubbed her knuckles against her chin. "Of course. I'm
sorry, I guess I'm just used to being paranoid. After what Chris did, Washuu's
actions are only natural."
	At that moment, there was a polite knock on the door. Rei walked over
and got it. Katsuhito smiled at her, his body briefly in shadow except for the
gleam of his glasses. He stepped through into the room without waiting for an
invitation. "Ladies, I trust you are well?"
	"Yes," Rei said, blinking.
	"Good, good." The old man turned to face Akane. "Ah, Akane. I keep
forgetting to give you this." He held out a long wrapped package. Akane took it,
raising an eyebrow. "It's a new sword, a wooden one. It's carved from the wood
of a Juraian tree."
	Akane unwrapped the package and her eyes widened at the finely carved
blade she held. It was the colour of warm caramel. She held it out, swinging it
as much as she could in the confined room. "This is... thank you. This blade is
magnificent."
	"I'm glad you like it," Katsuhito smiled. "It used to belong to my
daughter."
	"Thank you," Akane said, bowing. The old man gestured for her to rise,
looking somewhat embarrassed.
	"I'm afraid this isn't entirely a pleasure visit," Katsuhito told her.
	"Oh?" Akane asked mildly, seemingly occupied with sliding the bokken
into her belt.
	"You asked me to check with Washuu, about helping out that girl?"
	"Nanami!" Rei gasped, stepping forward. She clenched her fists again.
"Did she find some way to help her? Luna and Artemis said..."
	"Whoa, whoa..." Katsuhito gestured for her to calm down. "It's good news
and bad news."
	"What's the good news?" Akane asked.
	"Washuu thinks she may have a way to help her. But..." He frowned and
ran a finger along his moustache. "You see, her dreams are the key. It is how
the Oblivion got inside her. If we try to interact with her dreams here, we'll
only punch a hole directly to Oblivion and destroy her and much of the
surrounding area."
	"That's the bad news?" Rei asked, slumping.
	"No, this is still the good news." Katsuhito smiled. "You see, we can't
affect her dreamscape directly. But we could try indirect methods. We would need
to find a person close to her. Someone whom she felt a deep connection with..."
	"Her brother!" Rei broke in, excited. "She was always concerned about
her brother. Could we use HIM to help her?"
	"Possibly," Katsuhito said, nodding sagely.
	"Is there any way to find him?" Akane asked. In her excitement, Rei
almost missed the subtle suspicion in Akane's voice. Almost. She glared at
Akane, who was ignoring her to look at Katsuhito.
	"Yes. In fact, we already looked for compatible dream waves. We located
one in the North Pole."
	"The North Pole..." Akane frowned. "The Dark Kingdom, you mean."
	"Yes," Katsuhito replied. "Unfortunately we noticed several other
things."
	"Such as?" Akane closed her eyes and laced her fingers together.
	"The fact that he is in close proximity to both the Death Messiah, and
our mutual friend, Chris."
	"Damn..." Rei's eyes widened. "That can't be good. Tethys, Chris and the
Messiah of Silence in the same place... that won't end well."
	"Not to mention that another of Akane's old friends is there. A girl by
the name of Ukyou..."
	"Ukyou?" Akane looked up sharply. "She's... she's ALIVE!?"
	"Apparently so."
	Akane frowned and grabbed the handle of her new sword. "We have to go,
then, don't we?"
	"Of course we do!" Rei said. "Sailor Moon doesn't need us here, Akane.
But if the two of us go and find her brother, we might be able to help Nanami."
	"You're right." Akane looked at the old man. "So, how do we get there?"

*

	It wasn't supposed to be this way.
	Ukyou was not supposed to be looking at her that way. Her eyes were not
supposed to be cold, distant. For three weeks now, Akira had seen another side
of Ukyou. She had seen a side that gave her warm looks. A side that opened up to
her. A vulnerable human being beneath the facade of ice she had built up around
her feelings. Now...
	Akira clenched her fist until her fingers dug into her palm. She glared
at Tethys, hoping to burn the monster away with the sheer force of her will.
Tethys was not supposed to be here, smiling smugly at her. She was not supposed
to look so confident, so assured.
	One year ago. Had it only been a year? It felt like a lifetime. Akira
had pushed this past, these feelings so far away she thought she would never
have to face them. For the last three weeks, she had been avoiding them.
Avoiding Ukyou. Avoiding herself.
	And now it was all out in the open. Oh, Ukyou didn't know the details.
But why did she need to? It was Akira's sin. It was her decision, and now she
would have to face the consequences.
	"Why don't you tell her the truth, Akira?" Tethys said calmly, brushing
off her dress. "About how much you were willing to do for me?"
	"Damn you... you made me..." Akira hissed. But the accusation sounded
hollow even to her ears. She wanted deeply to believe that Tethys was
responsible. That she had been forced to do it. That was a lie. Because it
wasn't the fact that she had done it that had made Akira leave. It had been what
she had learned afterward.
	"Very well," Tethys said with a chuckle. "Pluto knows well enough. Why
don't you tell Ukyou exactly how pure and innocent her friend here is?"
	"Tethys, I don't want..." Pluto whispered.
	"Tell her," Tethys said, her voice thick with authority.
	"It was a little over one year ago..." Pluto began slowly. "Rose and I
had been here for less than a year, but Akira had been here longer than that."
She paused and as Pluto talked, Akira felt her memory going back to those
moments. How she had been... happy here. How she had felt like she was making a
difference. Fighting the good fight. Oh, certainly she had spent a great deal of
time on the road, wandering the earth, finding problems and solving them... But
this place, for those three years, had been HOME.
	"Akira was travelling in space. She was Tethys' most trusted lieutenant.
She was in charge of making certain one of Tethys' diplomats returned safely
from the planet Jurai."
	Akira could see it, the strange controls of the ship Tethys had
presented her with. Little more than a two-person shuttle, barely larger than a
small car. But the controls had been instinctive. Akira had taken to piloting
with the same aplomb she had to motorcycles. Running Galaxia's blockades had
become something of a game, a game she was very good at.
	"On her way there she encountered a ship of refugees. One thousand
people fleeing the destruction of their homeworld by Galaxia's forces. They were
on their way to Earth..."
	Akira could still see the 'ship'... little more than a freighter, a
block of metal in space running on fumes and leaking exhaust from its engines.
She could hear the desperate pleas of the distress signal. And she could hear
Tethys' voice over the radio, telling her the awful truth.
	"One of the people on board that ship has a Star Seed, Akira. Galaxia
knows this and she will chase it to the ends of the universe. If those people
reach Earth, Galaxia will follow. And she will kill everyone. Everyone.
Arkanphel? Millennium? The Americans? Nobody here can stand up to her. She alone
can rip out the souls of everyone on the planet at once. I can't fight her,
Akira. Maybe in ten years, maybe after I've had a chance to grow in power, but
now... not now."
	Akira's hands cramped. They curled around phantom controls of a phantom
ship. Her thumbs rested on a pair of raised triggers. There had been no choice,
really. They were too close to Earth. They didn't have enough fuel, enough air
or water, to turn around. Galaxia would chase them. She would hunt them. She
would kill them.
	And if Akira helped them, she would die herself. She and everyone she
cared about. Her friends. Her brother. The woman she had promised never to give
up on...
	It was a mercy, what Akira had done. One moment of light and fire, then
the cold emptiness of space. Akira told herself that they hadn't even seen it
coming. They hadn't felt a thing. She had to believe that.
	"...but Akira didn't know the truth," Pluto pointed out suddenly, her
voice fierce. "Tethys KNEW that the people on board that ship didn't have a Star
Seed. Galaxia was not chasing them. She bragged to us later, me and Rose. She
said that it was a test. A test of what kinds of choices Akira would make. A
test to see if she could look past her 'shallow morality' and see the bigger
picture." Pluto's voice was filled with disgust and she was levelling a
dangerous look at Tethys. "Unfortunately for her, Akira overheard. What happened
next... wasn't pleasant."
	"So that's the story, is it?" Ukyou said softly.
	"Ukyou..." Akira moaned. She wasn't looking at her. Ukyou was staring at
Tethys. At her smirking face. Tethys knew she had won. Ukyou could never trust
Akira now. Now after she had done all that and... and LIED about it. Lied to
everyone, including herself. It went against everything Ukyou stood for.
	"That's it, Ukyou," Tethys said smoothly, stepping forward. "I bet you
think I was cruel, that I was evil to bring this up, Ukyou, and you would be
right." Tethys held up one hand, uncurling it in front of her face. "You're
right. I am evil. But the difference between me and Akira is just that I admit
it. That I'm willing to face myself, and what I am. I'm willing to do what is
necessary. Pluto and Rose both agreed with me. Akira did not. She did not see
that the illusion of morality holds us back. It plays into the hands of our
enemies." Tethys brought her other hand up and spun, extending her hands
outward. "This whole world is full of evil people, who in their hearts will do
evil things. But I will change that. I want to destroy it, Ukyou. That part of
the human spirit that can be evil. The part that will allow people like myself
and Akira to exist.
	"The part that turns innocent young girls into killers. It's Chaos,
Ukyou, the evil in everyone's heart, that I'm fighting. And it is your enemy,
too. You came here looking for a way to save Hotaru, and I can show it to you."
She stopped her slow spin and faced Ukyou again, extending her hand. "I admit, I
don't have the power. I can not create the new world, a world that doesn't need
people like me. But you can. And I can show you. I can help you save one girl's
soul, and all I ask in return is that you save all creation."
	Ukyou looked at the Dark Queen for a few moments. Then her cold
expression warmed. Her black lotus eyes softened and her thin lips curled up in
a little laughing smile. "I'm surprised at you, Tethys."
	"Surprised?"
	"Did you really think this would work?" Ukyou walked forward. "Show me
that everyone can be evil, and I'll join your crusade? I have to admit, this was
an elaborate plan." Ukyou paused, only a few steps away from Tethys. Well within
reach of her Silence Glaive. Then she turned and walked over to Akira.
	Akira stared as Ukyou reached out and grabbed her hand, she pulled the
unresisting limb up and placed it against her heart. "Do you think I care what
Akira did? Do you really think it matters?"
	"Ukyou..." Akira breathed. Tethys's expression darkened.
	"Yes, Akira isn't perfect. I never asked her to be. I never asked
anything of her. And she never asked anything of me. All we have is whatever
feelings we share, at this moment. Erasing my memories? Bison told me about
that, and so what? Frankly, I don't want to remember Lotus Infinite. Serving
you? Killing people? I'd be a bit of a hypocrite to say that one bad decision in
her life made her a person I can't care for."
	Ukyou stepped to her side, her fingers lacing between Akira's. "If you
hoped to win me over to your cause, Tethys, you're going to have to come up with
something more powerful than the old 'everyone is really an asshole, down
inside' bit."
	Tethys's expression darkened further, and her voice was cold and
dangerous. "You have too much faith in your feelings, Ukyou."
	"Maybe." Ukyou chuckled. Akira was just looking at her, her head
swimming. Ukyou didn't care? It didn't matter? Could it be true? "I have to
admit, this was a good plan, however."
	"Plan?" Tethys frowned.
	 "Oh, not your plan, Tethys. But you're a part of it. You and Akira,
Hotaru and I, Nabiki and Ryouga. Pluto. Rose. Ranma. It's all led us here,
hasn't it? Coming together." Ukyou smiled thinly. "We're all pawns of destiny,
pieces on a board bigger than ourselves. It's all drawn us here, together. In
fact, there are only a few major players missing from the..." Ukyou trailed off.
She looked up, back towards the top of the chamber. "I spoke too soon. Looks
like the gang is, in fact, all here."
	"What is it?" Pluto asked.
	"You felt that?" Ukyou asked Tethys.
	Tethys glanced at her, then up. Her frown turned into a snarl. "So,
attacking my kingdom, are you?" She raised up one hand. "I'll show you not to
trifle with me!" She clenched her fist and smiled.
	"What's going on?" Pluto asked. Akira was still staring at Ukyou,
dumbfounded. She had wasted all this time, trying to run away from the thing she
had wanted so bad after she had finally caught it. She had thought she had grown
up seven years ago, but it looked like she was still a child. Still thinking she
wasn't worth the happiness she fought for.
	"I think Chris is attacking Tethys," Ukyou mused. "Or maybe he's after
something else..."
	"Chris?" Akira started. "Here? That would mean..."
	"Yes. Angel. And someone I don't recognise and..." Ukyou frowned. "No...
that can't be right..."
	"Heh," Tethys smirked. "Innovative. That actually held me back. But I
haven't spent seven years idle!" Tethys gestured again, but her concentration
seemed to totally be on what was happening somewhere above them.
	"She's distracted..." Ukyou said. She looked over the side. The platform
had stopped directly above the great rift. She looked at Akira. "Akira, I'm
going after her. Hotaru is here, in the city. I have to talk to her. This may be
the only chance I'll get to do that alone!"
	"You can't!" Pluto snapped, stepping in front of her.
	"You can either stop me, or get out of my way," Ukyou informed the Time
Senshi flatly. "I have to know, Pluto. I have to talk to Hotaru, and learn what
exactly it is I'm really fighting. What it is that we're all fighting."
	Pluto frowned. "Very well. But I'm coming too."
`	"Akira..." Ukyou turned to her. Akira looked at her, then at Tethys. The
Dark Queen was so absorbed in whatever distant battle she was fighting that she
wasn't even seeing them. Akira was very tempted to punch her again. But she
resisted.
	"Go, Ukyou." Akira looked at her friend, the woman she loved. "You have
a soul to save, and so do I." She smirked. "After all, you forgave me, but
someone has to forgive her."
	Ukyou looked at her a long moment. Then she clapped a hand on Akira's
shoulder. "We'll meet again, then."
	Akira placed her hand over Ukyou's. Then she smiled. "Promise?"
	Ukyou laughed. "Yes. I promise."

*

	"Damn, there are so many people here," Ranma muttered.
	"What did you expect? I said it was a city of over a million people,"
Nabiki pointed out.
	"Yeah, but..." Ranma shrugged. He wasn't certain what it was, but this
entire place set him on edge. He blinked. Wait, of course he was certain what it
was. This entire place was a magical fortress built under a glacier of frozen
water, powered by dark energy, filled with soul-eating demons and inhabited by
millions of people loyal to a woman who called herself the Dark Queen.
	Frankly, if Ranma hadn't been on edge, he would have thought there was
something wrong with him.
	"Also, didn't Pluto tell us there was only one entrance?" Ranma asked.
"That doesn't explain that tunnel we came down in."
	"Tethys may be paranoid, but she isn't stupid." Nabiki snorted. "No city
of this many people can only have one entrance, Ranma. Or more accurately, it
has to have more than one exit. Just in case anything goes wrong. The trick is
knowing where to look."
	"And how did you..." Nabiki interrupted him with a level stare. "Oh...
right. Mind stuff."
	"Come on, we're almost there." Nabiki picked up the pace, moving through
the crowds of people here with distinct ease. The people in the city really
didn't look any different than any others. They came from all the races Ranma
had seen, and a few he hadn't. There were people here with blue and green skin,
some with antennae on their head. There had been a man with the head of a dog at
one corner, hawking fish to passersby. There had been one woman Ranma was
certain wasn't a youma, but who had been wearing nothing except curling strips
of white fur. Of course, Ranma hadn't gotten a good look at her, since she
resembled a... the bad things, a bit too much for his taste.
	Besides, Minako would have gutted him if she caught him staring at what
was, essentially, a naked chick.
	"Where exactly is there?" Ranma asked idly.
	"Near the end of the market," Nabiki muttered. "He's alone. That's good.
It means we won't have to worry about Hotaru showing up." Nabiki paused. "Ranma,
he might not want to go willingly."
	"Well, can't you just..." He waved his fingers near his temples. Nabiki
grimaced in disgust.
	"I'd... it's just..."
	"Hey, fine." Ranma smiled at her. "If you don't want to mind-whammy
him..." He cracked his knuckles.
	"We're not here to fight, Ranma!"
	"Okay..." Ranma grumbled, walking along behind his ex-fiancee.
	At first, Ranma didn't recognize him. The man was taller than the boy
Ranma remembered, and Ranma's memories were shaky at the best of times. It was
the fangs. He still had the same little fangs that flashed when he spoke. He was
arguing with a shopkeep, a short English man. Ryouga had filled out even more in
the last seven years. He was more muscular than Ranma, probably with at least
ten kilos on him, but still with the sleek frame of a natural fighter. His black
hair was long, clumsily cut, and his bangs drifted down over his face a bit. He
wore a brown coat and green pants stained here and there, both covered in rough
patches. Around his neck he wore a scarf of yellow cloth with black checkerboard
marks across it.
	Nabiki had paused, and was just staring at him. Ranma looked at her. Her
cheeks were flushed and her breathing short and shallow. She kept clenching and
unclenching her hands. She looked for all the world like a teenage girl trying
to work up the courage to talk to a cute guy, rather than the Queen of the
Underworld, about to confront the bodyguard of the Messiah of Silence.
	Ranma reached out, and patted her on the shoulder once. He smiled as
best he could. He really had no idea what he was doing, but Minako had told him
that girls liked it when guys smiled at them and tried to be encouraging.
Whatever it was, it seemed to work. Nabiki took a deep breath, steeled herself
and walked forward. Ranma waited a few beats, then followed her.
	"Ryouga."
	The boy paused, turning slightly at the sound of his name. He narrowed
his eyes and looked at the source. Nabiki looked back at him. He had to tower
over her by at least a head, and he looked down at her, rising to his full
height as he did so.
	"It's... been a long time," Nabiki said, her voice scratchy.
	"Nabiki," Ryouga said, his voice cold with anger. "I thought I told you
never to come near me again."
	"And I've honoured that," Nabiki said softly, looking down. "But I had
to come, Ryouga, I've been keeping track of you and-"
	"Of course you have," Ryouga snapped, cutting her off. "You're here for
her, aren't you?" he accused.
	"What? No! Well..." Nabiki trailed off.
	"Don't try to deny it," he snarled, stepping forward. "I won't let you
or anyone else hurt her." He sneered. "What, the psychotic plant lady didn't
succeed, so you came yourself?" He pushed her shoulder and Nabiki cried out,
more in surprise than pain, and stumbled back. "Go away, Nabiki. If you come
after Hotaru, she WILL kill you."
	"Hey!" Ranma grabbed Ryouga's wrist. "Leave her alone, tough guy."
	Ryouga looked up the arm, finally letting his eyes rest on Ranma's face.
"Saotome."
	"Yeah, that's right, Ryouga," Ranma started. "Listen, we're not here
about Hotaru. We were friends once and-"
	There were few times that Ranma was ever taken off-guard. But all he got
for a warning was a bloom of pain across his cheek, then the sensation of
flying. He managed to roll, hitting the wall with his feet instead of his back.
The thick black ice cracked as he touched it. He slid down, shaking his head.
	"We were never friends, Ranma," Ryouga informed him, slowly pulling back
his hand.
	Ranma rubbed his lips with the back of his hand. There was blood. He
frowned. "Ryouga, I'm going to try once more to be reasonable..."
	"Reasonable?" Ryouga stepped towards him, stretching his fingers at his
side. "You think I don't know what's going on? Nabiki's last assassin failed, so
now she's getting the one person who ever defeated me to come." Ryouga smirked.
"Well, Ranma, you'll find I'm just full of surprises."
	"Ranma! Ryouga! Stop this!" Nabiki shouted. Ranma looked around.
Everyone was staring at them. Ranma grinned.
	"Hey, he started it," he told her. Then he exploded across the tunnel
towards the boy. Ryouga met him, screaming. Each threw a blow, their auras
suddenly exploding around them; Ranma's a deep blue, Ryouga's a thick green.
	And the city around them exploded. Shards of ice flew in all directions
as the floor buckled and burst under the strain of their impact. Then they were
falling, floating down into the pits between the tunnels of the city. Their arms
and legs flashing, the air cracking as they delivered blows at speeds faster
than the eye could see. Ranma didn't quite chuckle. Ryouga snarled and cursed.
	Well, if Ryouga was spoiling for a fight so bad, far be it from Ranma
Saotome to deny him!

*

	"A giant black pyramid, huh?" Angel commented, whistling as she looked
up at it. "So how do you get in?"
	"Forcefully if we have to," Chris replied, "but that may not be
necessary. Link?"
	The woman was already examining the pyramid, hovering her hand over it
but not quite touching it. Finally, she looked back. "It's just a trick of the
stone, not an entire new enchantment for each visitor. The tunnel remains
inside... it would be more correct to say the pyramid rotates than that the
tunnel moves, but it's actually more complex than that. I could attempt to
figure out the weave she uses, but she'd certainly notice."
	Chris waved that aside. "We're not here for a social call, after all.
Where is the tunnel now?"
	Link stared at the pyramid again, sliding alongside it, still careful
not to quite touch the stark black stone. In the air above, her dragon coiled
and uncoiled, seemingly untouched by the wind, though icicles had formed on it
midway along the trip here. Chris hovered above a snowdrift, face and posture
calm. Kalia was beside Him, as she almost always was. She was giggling to
herself about something, but Angel tried to ignore her.
	"Here," Link said finally. She had moved several steps to the right,
and pointed at a particular block of stone. "Beneath this, about two meters
directly inward."
	Chris nodded at Angel. "If you'd do the honours of announcing us, then?"
	Angel felt a shiver running down her back, even through the thick multi-
layered parka that was protecting her from the arctic winds. Despite everything
else, despite being sure that Chris could handle any eventuality, she still
prayed that Tethys wouldn't immediately rise to confront the intrusion as she
stepped forward. Bison had been terrifying enough, and Angel had never even been
close enough to see him - or her, she guessed - clearly. The few times she'd
been in the presence of a zoalord were just as bad. Being near Saffron, too.
	Some beings just reminded you of how frail and human you were.
	But Chris was as calm and steady as ever, so she swallowed and ignored
the tight knot in her stomach. Sizing up the imposing stone structure, she drew
her fist back. The snow around her began to hiss, and steam rose as she poured
all the limitless power from her tattoos she could handle into her fire chakra.
Then she threw all the strength-enhancing chi into her fist as she swung forward
with all her might.
	The effect was spectacular, but then, it usually was.
	Chris clapped politely as the dust cleared. A section the size of a
largish bus had been knocked out of the pyramid wall; the part immediately
around the impact point had been pulverised, and the surrounding chunks sheared
off by the shockwaves. In the centre was the promised tunnel, a two meter wide
passage into darkness. "Excellently done," Chris noted. "Well, she knows someone
is here now. Let's go."
	They walked into the tunnel, which was pitch-black for a moment, but
then several shàyù crawled from Link's sleeves and flew into the air, their
bodies glowing like miniature lanterns. It was only cool in here, surprisingly,
not bitterly cold as it had been outside or like Angel would have expected from
the 'City of Black Ice'. But then, she supposed, people did live there.
	After a moment of walking, Chris raised a hand for a halt. "This is far
enough for the moment. I expect Tethys is trying to get a fix on exactly what we
are. Sensing me or Kalia ought to be beyond her until she gets much closer, but
we will all need freedom of movement in the city to accomplish our tasks, which
will require a distraction. Link, kindly create that distraction."
	Link nodded slightly and stepped forward. One hand emerged from her
sleeves and scattered a number of small objects to the tunnel. "I'll create a
self-generating forest," she explained. "It should act like chaff, millions of
lifesigns obscuring our own." She frowned and reached the hand into her other
sleeve. "I'll just need some water-"
	Angel never even saw it coming. All of a sudden she was spinning end
over end, which took her a moment to realise. It took her a further moment to
determine she was underwater. Her mouth opened, maybe to say something, maybe
just to gape in surprise, and she choked. She looked around for a pocket of air,
something, but the lights had vanished and she was in pitch darkness.
	And then the light returned. Violet flared, and suddenly the water was
gone. She toppled to the floor, retching the water from her lungs. She could
barely see for a moment, for the water had been replaced by steam thicker than
the densest fog. But the light cut even through it, and she made her way to
Chris once she could stand again. He was surrounded by His purple flames, and
spared a glance at her as she drew near Him. "Are you alright?"
	"Fine," she gasped.
	He nodded, then raised an arm. A burst of power flared from His hand,
blasting the steam away in all directions. The tunnel was lit again, this time
by His aura of power. By the light, Angel could see the last of the water
draining away from them. "I think that's her way of saying she wasn't overly
impressed by our entrance," Chris noted wryly.
	A muttered Chinese curse caught Angel's attention, and she looked to the
right, immediately suppressing a laugh. Link was sprawled on the tunnel floor,
legs and arms spread out in an ungainly fashion. Her outfit was soaked, and the
force of the water burst had torn most of the pins from her hair. Shàyù dropped
from her sleeves as she moved, flailing helplessly in the water. As she crawled
back to her knees, Link angrily swept the hair from her face, revealing that one
of the pins had dug into her scalp to leave an angry gash in her forehead. She
continued to curse under her breath as she struggled to her feet, forcing Angel
to suppress another laugh.
	"I'm sorry," Chris said apologetically. "I should have guessed she'd
realise what you were trying to do and act. I should-"
	"Should nothing!" Link snapped peevishly, finally drawing herself up.
"Don't do me any favours! If you or she thinks this will stop me - ME! - from
growing whatever I please, you both can sit back and watch! All she did was
provide me with water!" She stepped forward, hiking up her long sleeves and
irritably swatting aside a shàyù that was stuck in the folds of the now-sodden
fabric. "Now stay out of my way!"
	"Of course," Chris murmured, smiling and drifting backwards, though He
watched carefully down the tunnel. Angel stepped back as well. Once she would
have been shocked to see anybody talk like that to Chris, but that was before
she realised that Link was like that to everyone when she was angry. The
strangest things set her off, too, sometimes.
	Link set herself and stared at the ground again, then sharply looked up
into the dark void before them. Her eyes narrowed. "Not this time, you trumped-
up youma bitch," she snarled.
	This time, she did feel it coming. A slow rumble that started deep in
her bones and slowly grew until the entire tunnel was shaking. A blast of air
hit them, intensely, pushed by the wall of water heading towards them. Angel
looked at Chris, but He shook His head, the slight smile still on His features.
	So she turned back to Link. The Chinese woman's soaked robes were
plastered against her slim figure as she raised her arms. Her long black hair,
free of constraints, now streamed backwards in the rising breeze. Her face was
set in a ferocious scowl of determination. Her hand raised, dipping her
fingertips into the blood that trickled down her face. Then, even as Angel's
eyes finally perceived the wall of water roaring up towards them, Link shouted
and whipped her hand out in front of her. The blood on her fingertips hung in
the air behind them as she drew a complex pattern. The air flashed just as the
water struck.
	Angel flinched involuntarily, but she didn't get any wetter. Link
staggered back as if struck, and her face was still screwed up in furious
concentration, but her eyes sparkled with triumph. Before her, the wall of water
pulsed and twitched, but moved no further. The lines she had drawn in the air
with her blood glowed vivid, burning red.  Abruptly they faded almost to black
and the wall of water advanced a few centimeters, but Link muttered another
curse and the seal she'd formed lit up again and continued holding it back.
	"No, I can't hope to match you for power or even hold you off for longer
than a moment," Link growled, reaching back and delicately dabbing her finger in
her blood again. "But I don't have to." She lowered her hand, letting a few
drops of the red liquid fall on the tunnel floor before her. They bubbled and
hissed, and then suddenly spread into a tiny flat reflective pool. The shield
holding off the water shuddered again, but held. Link's face was now white with
strain, but her eyes were even more viciously joyful than before. "I'll show you
that even you can't brush me aside, Tethys!"
	Her hand rose again, sharply. For a moment, nothing happened, as the
seal on the water flickered even more ominously. Then the pool of Link's blood
spread out in tight, thin lines through the grooves in the stone floor. The
scarlet trails branched out and intersected in an intricate pattern that Angel
could almost determine the form of before they drove into the wall of water.
	Green erupted outward. The speed of it was incredible. Angel didn't have
her air chakra activated, but even so, her eye was far faster than any ordinary
person's. Despite this, even to her the water seemed to vanish in the blink of
an eye, replaced by a bulging barricade of bark, vines, and leaves. Link stood
for a moment, her face twisted in triumph, then abruptly swayed, her eyes
rolling upwards, and nearly fell over backwards.
	Chris was there, steadying her just as she lost her balance. For a
moment Link hung there against His arm, then her eyes refocused. She flinched,
her entire body shuddering, and drew so quickly away from Him that she nearly
toppled over in the other direction. Chris didn't really react, but Angel
noticed somewhere along the way He'd stopped smiling. "Did you do it?" He asked
softly.
	"Of... course," Link said, breathing heavily. "I could have... done
something like that... seven years ago."
	"Not against Tethys," Chris said.
	"No, I suppose not," Link muttered, hardly seeming any happier for the
praise. "The main trick was to make sure it replicated faster than she could
turn her power on the plants to destroy them. Not hard, when her entire city is
made of ice. Magical ice, perhaps, but the difference isn't as great as she
thinks." A spiteful little light suddenly danced in her eyes. "She'll remember
me now."
	"No doubt, though she'll have other concerns soon enough," Chris
replied.
	Angel wondered what He meant for a moment, then snapped her head back,
looking around the tunnel.  But they were the only ones there. "Kalia?"
	"She'll find her own way," Chris said, the smile returning. "She always
does. Now it's time for you to head out, Angel."
	Angel stared blankly at the impenetrable mass of vegetation for a
moment. Link rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers, and with a sound like
rending cloth, the plants drew apart, leaving a passageway.  "Okay," Angel
shrugged.  "But aren't we all going?"
	"In a moment," Chris said. "I took the liberty of doing some research,
and there's a few things I think Link ought to know about our... dear friend,
Nabiki Tendo. I'll walk with her for awhile."
	Angel shrugged again, and then her sword leaped from her sheath. A few
well-placed cuts later, and her sodden parka fell to the tunnel floor. She
stretched, glad to be free to move again, and re-belted her sword to her now-
bare thigh.
	"Be careful not to be seen," Chris cautioned. "There are many powerful
foes here."
	Angel grinned as she fed chi into her air chakra; this time, the light
that streamed into the tunnel came from her as her tattoo lit up like a bonfire.
"Don't worry about me. I'll find where Tethys has stashed Alucard before anyone
even remembers I'm here."

*

	The first sign that there was something wrong was the thunderous crack
that resounded throughout the city. The people stopped, their eyes drifting
skyward. From those places with a view of the great black, star-dotted ceiling
there came a collective gasp. A single crack, appearing as thin as a hair,
traversed the pyramidal complex from one end to the other.
	For a moment, the people stood there, uncertain what to do. Then the
crack came again, and another line formed in the ice. With a roar of protest a
thick chunk of ice, the size of a football field, broke free. It slid downward
slowly at first, then with increasing speed. Its descent was almost lazy, and
strangely graceful. When it struck the city below, it broke into a cloud of grey
mist, filled with razor-sharp shards of ice and hurtling chunks larger than a
human moving at terminal velocity. Nobody heard the screams over the cataclysmic
destruction.
	The people were already running, fleeing for their lives. In less than
twenty seconds, the peace of this city had been shattered. A place that had
become a refuge, a place that many had fled to in order to escape the chaos of
the world outside, now suddenly violated.
	From the rift the fallen iceberg had come from, there came a small green
thing. It appeared like a flower stem, uncurling itself from the earth like a
bean sprout on fast forward. Except it was growing downward, and it was the size
of a city block. Again and again across the ceiling the ice shattered and
cracked, sending icebergs plummeting like asteroids into the city below. Out of
these voids came more and more of the strange blooms.
	One by one the strange plants reached their full extension, becoming a
green shaft pointed straight down at the coral reef-like structure of the city.
When they were finished the city held its breath. There were no more cracks, no
more explosions, no more rains of deadly ice from the sky. Just dozens of
flowerless stems pointed straight down.
	A second later, the shafts rocketed downwards like spears, extending so
fast that few could follow their descent. One after another they crashed into
the devastated city. Where they came down, great clouds of yellow dust exploded
outwards, swiftly blanketing anything nearby in a thick choking cloud. A
phantasmagoria of plants burst forth from where the pollen had settled on the
black ice. Everything from tiny flowers, to thick pines to other stranger things
came forth. Great pulsating vines, thick and red, burrowed through walls and
tunnels, tearing apart those citizens too slow to get out of their way. Even
among those who did, there were screams and deaths, as the pollen shot forth,
choking anyone caught in the expanding clouds.
	Tethys rested her hands on the rails of her floating platform. So far,
none of the chaos had reached anywhere near the Great Rift. She frowned.
	"What an inconvenience," she stated. She flipped her head, letting her
long hair fall behind her. The petty little magician that had invaded her city
seemed to be quite skilled. Not that she could win. Even this wasn't beyond
Tethys' ability to fix.
	Unfortunately it was interfering with her ability to sense her
opponents. Among the trees and plants there were life forces, hundreds or them,
thousands of them. Each beating strong and loud, the magical equivalent to
throwing up smokescreen. Tethys knew her senses were not refined enough to
pierce the deception.
	"Ukyou, we seem to be..." Tethys trailed off. She looked around the
platform. She was alone. "Now that was just rude," Tethys said with a sigh,
shaking her head. Unfortunately, it would be just as hard to track down Ukyou as
it would to track down her attackers. She turned again, preparing to summon up
some of her more powerful minions-
	"HI!"
	For the second time that day, someone crashed their fist into Tethys'
face. Unlike before, this blow was powerful enough to send her flying off the
platform, shattering the guard rail like a dry noodle. She continued on,
crashing through a tunnel as wide as a four-lane street without pause. Her body
skipped like a stone across half the city, tearing divots and trenches through
the buildings. Finally she came to a rest on the side of a nautilus shell-shaped
structure.
	"That... hurt quite a bit," Tethys informed no one in particular as she
raised to her feet. She adjusted her jaw with one hand, resetting the bone as
she liquefied the torn tissue before regenerating it healthy once more, causing
the pain to vanish as if it had never been.
	She then looked around. She distinctly remembered seeing a white-haired
girl in a strange bodysuit just before the blow had struck her.
	"Up here!"
	Tethys craned her neck, looking to the top of the nautilus. The girl was
walking along a thin stalagmite of ice that grew from the top of the building,
her arms extended to her sides and her body rocking back and forth as if she
were traversing a tightrope. Except she was walking up the icicle.
	"I suppose this is the point where I ask who you are, except I don't
really care," Tethys said with a shrug, and gestured with one hand. The entire
top of the building exploded, the ice flashing upward, shattering into a million
razor-thin daggers that spun into the sky, tearing everything apart in their
wake. Tethys knew the girl would disintegrate in the centre of the blast, her
body flying apart under the assault.
	She KNEW it.
	So why was the girl standing there, sitting on top of the icicle, her
legs kicking back and forth idly, like nothing at all had happened?
	"Hey, not caring has gotten you this far, why should I buck the trend?"
the girl said, her voice cheerful. "My name is Kalia, since you don't care so
much. How are you today?"
	"I've had better days," Tethys said, tapping her foot impatiently. She
blinked. She hadn't MEANT to say that.
	"Yeah, sucks to be you, I guess," Kalia said, nodding sagely. "I'm here
to kill you, so that probably won't help."
	"At least you're honest," Tethys admitted, smiling.
	The girl cocked her head to one side and placed a finger to her lip.
"Mou. Or am I supposed to delay you until someone else gets here to kill you? I
can't decide."
	"Why don't we just fight each other? Then, if you kill me, you were here
to do that, and if you don't you were just here to delay me," Tethys said
helpfully. She started, staggering back through the air, overcome by a sudden
wave of vertigo. What had just happened to her?
	"Now, I know that you're basically invulnerable to physical damage of
all kinds," Kalia said, floating off her perch and down towards Tethys. Tethys
frowned and rose into the air to meet her. She absently weaved her outfit into a
more appropriate battle form, summoning her ice lance as she did so. They met in
mid-air, floating less than a meter apart. Tethys' long hair billowed out behind
her and Kalia just sort of smiled lightly, like she hadn't a care in the world.
"You can turn into water, negating any blow that strikes you. And even if I did
hit you, you can just instantly regenerate from it."
	"That's true," Tethys smirked. "So unless you have something special up
your sleeve, why not give up and die now?"
	"I think it would be a better idea if, for some insane reason, you just
decided not to use those powers."
	"Agreed," Tethys said. Then blinked.
	The next thing she knew, her arm was broken in five places. She
screamed, falling back and clutching it. Kalia smirked at her, holding up both
hands in a sort of apologetic fashion. Tethys hadn't even seen her move. What...
what was this girl?
	"I forgot to mention this earlier, Tethys, but I'm unfair," Kalia said,
and then she laughed.

*

	Akane hated teleporting.
	It wasn't that teleportation, at least the kind employed by Washuu, was
particularly unpleasant. In fact, if you didn't pay attention closely, you might
not even notice any effect whatsoever. It also wasn't that she hated it on an
intellectual level. She had no idea how it worked (she had been too intimidated
to ask), nor did she have any moral objection to its practical uses.
	It just always left her feeling... strange. Like she had lost something,
but couldn't remember what.
	She also preferred to do it with her eyes closed, so she only opened
them once Rei announced that they had arrived. She looked around the chamber
they had arrived in. It was a large domed room, the walls glittering black, and
there was a slight chill that radiated from them. Instinctively Akane drew in
more of her fire chakra, warming herself back up to comfortable levels. The
combat suit she wore was surprisingly good insulation, but it wasn't actually
designed for the cold. Rei, despite wearing far less than Akane, didn't look
particularly uncomfortable.
	Katsuhito didn't even look like he had noticed their current situation.
He was staring down at the wristband that Washuu had given them to protect
against Akio. Akane reminded herself to berate the short redhead later about
that. Those things had proven practically useless. She had meant to do so when
they'd left Ohtori, but Washuu herself hadn't arrived to personally teleport
them.
	In fact, Akane hadn't even seen Washuu since they'd left for the academy
over three weeks ago.
	"Hmmm... it appears we arrived just in time," Katsuhito said softly.
	"What do you-" Rei cut off as a titanic roar filled the chamber.
Everything shuddered, rocking and bouncing. Akane staggered, barely managing to
keep her feet under her while Rei fell ingloriously on her ass. Katsuhito, for
his part, didn't even so much as twitch. He simply slid his hands into his
sleeves and looked at the two of them.
	"The city is under attack," he said.
	"You think?" Rei grumbled, standing up. "What have you gotten us into
this time, old man?"
	Before he could answer, there was another crash. This time Akane had
better luck holding her stance, while Rei was able to keep her footing with more
difficulty.
	"We don't have much time," Katsuhito told them. "The devices on your
wrists are tied into Washuu's computers back at home. She's locked on to the
genetic signature of Miss Kiryuu's brother. You two better go quickly."
	"Right..." Rei looked at her wrist. "Now how do these things..." She
blinked as a miniature hologram, a nearly flawless three-dimensional map of what
Akane could only assume was the cavern complex they were in, appeared floating
over her wrist. There were four blinking lights on it, three clustered together
near the bottom and one somewhat distant, not that far away from them. "That's
handier than most things she builds." Rei started as the projection turned
abruptly into a small child-like version of Washuu which smacked her on the head
with a tiny pink and blue hammer. It reverted back to normal and Rei blinked,
rubbing her forehead. "That hurt..."
	"Just because she isn't here, doesn't mean she isn't paying attention,"
Katsuhito pointed out, smiling jovially.
	"Right, so what do we do once we find him?" Akane asked.
	"Place this on him." Katsuhito threw her another armband. She looked at
it. "Washuu can use it to teleport him away." Akane looked from it to him.
	"Where are you going?"
	Katsuhito looked at her. Then he adjusted his glasses so the shine of
them hid his eyes. "I'm going to go provide a distraction."
	"A distraction?" Akane asked.
	"Well, we don't want anyone interrupting us while we rescue Nanami's
brother, Akane," Rei said with a sigh.
	"Of course," Akane murmured. Something about this seemed... off.
	But Katsuhito was already walking away, towards one of the four exits
from the room. A tunnel that sloped up and in the opposite direction they were
going. Akane watched him leave until Rei grabbed her arm and started pulling her
in the direction of their objective. She shook her head.
	Whatever doubts she had, they could wait until after the current crisis
had passed.

*

	Someone could say that this was a fight seven years in the making. It
was no doubt a clash between two masters of the art. The classic struggle, the
unanswerable question. The immovable object. The irresistible force. In the
first five seconds of the battle they realised each other's measure, and
realised the other wasn't going to hold back.
	So neither did.
	Ryouga flew upward, his body carving a line through the City of Black
Ice. A green meteor, trailing a line of light behind him. He hadn't even paused
when Ranma had hit him. His hands came together, concentrating his power. His
body went nova, light catching and reflecting through the sheen of the black
ice.
	"JISATSU BAKUHA!"
	Ranma was following him, running through the column carved by Ryouga.
Ryouga screamed, releasing the blast of energy straight down. His aura collapsed
into it, forming a ball of light no larger than a baseball. It fell far faster
than gravity had any right to drag it. The city around it imploded, huge
sections of ice and entire tunnels collapsing in towards the centre of the
attack. There was no way for Ranma to dodge it, not in the tight corridor that
he was travelling.
	So Ranma reached up one hand, and caught it. His body flew backwards
until his feet sunk two inches into a thick sheet of ice. His face was a mask of
concentration. Then the ground around him erupted upward, a circular mass nearly
five meters wide exploding all at once. There was a pulse of blue-green light,
and then the cloud of shrapnel fell down around him.
	Ranma was breathing heavily, but still standing.
	"Nice trick," Ranma said, smirking.
	"There was no way to block that," Ryouga accused. He was standing about
fifteen meters above his opponent, so they had to yell. Ryouga knew that attack
should have worked. It was the Jisatsu Bakuha, the Suicide Blast. Every time
Ryouga used it, he literally tore out his own soul, filled it with chi and
launched it like a nuclear bomb. Using it should have killed him. He could feel
the strain of it, draining him, but he didn't die.
	Because the last time he had used that technique, a woman had wished
that he wouldn't die. And so he wouldn't. Ever.
	"I didn't block it," Ranma said. "I just sort of..." He shrugged.
"channelled it around me."
	"It seems Nabiki chose well," Ryouga growled. The one person, aside from
Hotaru, to have ever defeated Ryouga in martial arts. Nabiki certainly knew how
to pick them. Wasn't she ever going to stop ruining his life?
	Ranma had somehow managed to climb up to his level in the few seconds it
took Ryouga to say that. "Hey, get a clue, Ryouga. I'm not here to kill you."
	"No, just Hotaru!" Ryouga leapt at him, and the fight began again. For
now, they kept it to the mundane. Punches and kicks, leaps and blocks, an
exchange of blows as speeds that cracked the air and tore the surroundings to
shreds with even their near-misses. More of Ranma's blows got through than
Ryouga's, but they were like drops of water against a mountain. Most of them
Ryouga didn't even feel. Ryouga only managed to get in one blow, a deceptively
gentle looking little push with the ball of his thumb.
	The strike sent Ranma flying nearly a hundred meters across the city.
Ryouga bounded after him, cursing all the while. He'd have to rein back. He
wasn't fast enough to follow through on hits like that. He was just giving Ranma
a chance to recover while Ryouga caught up.
	Ranma was waiting for him, and he parried Ryouga's incoming jumpkick
with his forearm. There was a soft clank as Ryouga was knocked to the side.
Ranma skipped back, sliding around a few more of Ryouga's attacks. "Why do you
care so much about Hotaru, Ryouga? You've been with her for all these years. You
KNOW what she is!"
	"I have nothing else!" Ryouga told him. A missed strike smashed into a
building some thirty meters across, causing the entire side to rumble in. "I've
lost everything, Ranma. My pride, my honour, my humanity. Nabiki stripped it all
from me one piece at a time!"
	"Pal..." Ranma suddenly flashed through Ryouga's guard to look him
square in the eye from less than an inch away. "Get over it, already."
	Ryouga staggered back. "You don't understand..."
	"Wah, wah, wah..." Ranma slid in, driving an elbow into Ryouga's gut
hard enough that Ryouga actually had the wind blown out of him. Not that he
needed to breathe anymore, but it was still uncomfortable. "If you whine this
much, it's no wonder the girl planning on killing everything is the only one
willing to put up with you."
	"Shut up!" Ryouga swung, just missing taking Ranma's head off. "After
all the sacrifices I've made..."
	"Whatever, Ryouga," Ranma slid backward, hitting Ryouga a hundred times
in a heartbeat. None of the blows even registered. He hissed, shaking his
steaming knuckles. "But if you claim you have nothing, you oughta look again."
	"Look at what?" Ryouga stalked forward.
	"At the simple truth," Ranma said, frowning. "Like... you ever wonder
why you never get lost anymore?" Ryouga paused. "Or maybe wondered why you
always seem to know the best way to sneak