"Something happened?" asked Ami.
"We were tracking down the rumors of some gang attacking girls in the area, so it was a yoma after all?" asked Makoto.
"Not exactly," hedged Usagi, sneaking her hand closer to a bag of snacks.
"Don't even try it, meatball head," softly said Rei, noticing the ploy.
"Well, what exactly was it?" asked Makoto.
"It was a group of boys, seniors I think, and we didn't even get a chance to transform before some Dark General type swooped in and started blasting them!" Rei frowned. "The odd thing was... he didn't 'feel' foul or tainted to me."
"He's good at disguising then?" asked Ami.
"When I checked the sacred fire," said Rei, frowning and reaching over to slap Usagi's hand before it could snag the chips. "As I was saying. When I checked the sacred fire, I got that weird thing from back when we'd just finished off Pharoah 90."
Everyone glanced at Hotaru, who looked as if she was fairly distracted and worried. Everyone remembered that. Big battle, Sailor Saturn showing up and fighting with everyone else. Some unexplained energy blast distracting Kaolinite at a critical juncture. During the containment of the daimon outbreak, when Mars and Mercury and Venus and Jupiter had linked power but still been about to fail in that containment - SOMETHING had reinforced their forcefield. Mars had tried to get readings on whatever it had been on several occasions, but only gotten an odd poem in reply and shadowy images.
"So this Dark General might have been the assistance we received then?" asked Ami.
Hotaru kept quiet. Ranma had banished the darkness within her, using some spells he'd worked out. Ranma had come to their aid then - she'd suspected it ever since those events but she had never confronted him directly on it. Ranma had left his wheelchair behind and she'd seen him confront the others. Then she'd seen him duck behind a chimney and darn near choke on his own laughter.
"-so I think he's a villain who has fallen in love with the graceful and talented young heroine and betrays his Dark Masters in the end of the season," insisted Minako.
She suspected what was going on. The question was what to do about it now that she heard the (mis)interpretations going on around her.
"-more like in 'Yamabushi' in that I think this is-"
Hotaru tried to tune out some of the antics around her to concentrate on this. She'd seen him walking around, unsteadily though. It had all come together for her in this meeting, but she'd gathered the basics before.
"-but 'Yamabushi' is about a bishonen sentai team," complained Rei. "What if this is some new sentai group and they're going to displace us as Tokyo's guardians?"
"More time for studying," said Ami wistfully.
Hotaru realized that most likely this was not some yoma possession or something like that. If that had been the case, she'd expect him to be at full health and not tiring out and having to lean against a table while shopping. Though there had been that greedy gleam as he pigged out at a Fazoli's Italian Grill. Hmmm.
"-genre shifting, who knows what genre we're going to end up in," complained Rei. "It might even be... naughty tentacle demons."
"You're applying genre to real life," complained Ami. "Life is rarely tidy enough to be assigned a genre."
Besides, when she'd gone through his apartment looking for clues she'd run across that Print Club photo where she'd been with him at Mama Mia's Pizzaria. The picture of herself and her sempai (not that there was anything between them!) had stirred all sorts of feelings that she really didn't want to think too much about. Hotaru reminded herself that Ranma was her friend and her sempai and she just read entirely too much into the occasional glance or gesture.
"-but after confessing his love for the beautiful and elegant V-ch... I mean princess, usually the next thing that happens is the character DIES of wounds sustained in their battle. We can't let that happen!"
"Yeah but that happens every season in 'Magical Princess Victory' and we haven't exactly been even that lucky ourselves," said Makoto. "In the bishonen series the girls usually play second string but they don't DIE in long painful farewell scenes. They just get kidnapped or brainwashed or tied up on a regular basis and we get that anyway."
Hotaru came to a decision. She would:
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(Posted Tue, 25 Jan 2005 03:40)
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