===== The Heart of Darkness =====
In a radiant crystalline hall, Neo Queen Serenity sat on her crystal throne. Ruling over her subjects with quiet dignity, the new queen imperiously gazed across her domain.
In truth, Usagi had yet to so much as twitch after she created her Crystal Tokyo. With her world destroyed and her friends lost and scattered to the breeze, her heart had been broken. Even if Setsuna's mission of ensuring the creation of Crystal Tokyo was complete, it hadn't brought anyone back.
So the comatose Queen sat on her throne, undisturbed.
Around her were strange silvery-white humanoid aliens, walking the halls like servants even if they moved bonelessly. Black cloaked strangers wandered her conference hall, having meetings with each other and addressing the unresponsive Queen as if she were issuing orders.
Further out beyond the pure crystal walls were a sea of Heartless, countless dark forms swaying like so much kelp in an ocean current.
"I am sorry to report my Queen, but Sailor Pluto escaped at the last moment. It was that 'Ranma' once again, interfering with your just future again."
"Do not worry my dear Queen, we will bring you your Sailor Senshi, and they shall never abandon you again. Then we shall show everyone the glorious future that is Crystal Tokyo!"
Breathing quickly, Setsuna awakened with a start, her heart still racing.
Giving her senses a moment to acclimate to reality, she found herself alone in bed. From the way she had her arms and legs wrapped around the pillow the other two had been sleeping on, she'd probably embarrassed herself.
Letting go of the pillow with her thighs, she placed the crumpled item back into place on the other side of the bed. Sitting up, she noticed her nightgown was bunched around her waist and her panties seemed to be missing. Straightening her clothes with idle familiarity, Setsuna hoped she wouldn't have to explain herself to her bedmates.
She had long since gotten used to being plagued by wet dreams nightmares about being Ranma's sex-slave that waking up in such a state was typical. At least with the loss of her senshi powers it seemed she was no longer victim to waking up wearing items from her dreams.
The thick leather collar with the engraved golden tag had been one of the worst of those items.
More worrying however than even Hotaru's reaction to Setsuna's poor sleep had been the other nightmare that had awakened her. She couldn't recall what it had been, but whatever it was had been disturbing. Just the image of herself being saved from Crystal Tokyo where she was bound in silvery chains had been disturbing.
Noting that her left shoulder strap was broken, Setsuna made herself as presentable as possible, forcing her troubling dreams from her thoughts.
Getting out of bed, she noticed Ranma was sitting with his back to the bed and refusing to turn around. Hotaru's hooded gaze towards the former time guardian told her all she needed to know.
Stepping out of the bathroom properly dressed in a skirted business suit style outfit, Setsuna managed to successfully join her two house mates for breakfast this time.
That Ranma blushed and refused to look at her was only mildly troubling. Hotaru was obviously unhappy with her, which was more troubling. For her part, Setsuna thought it best to let the subject drop and make things up to Hotaru as soon as possible.
As such, breakfast proceeded in an awkward silence, broken only by Setsuna complimenting Hotaru for cooking so well.
When the dishes had been cleaned and put away, Hotaru took a hold of Ranma before Setsuna could broach the topic of her problems. Once Ranma was away from the table, Hotaru's mood changed to barely repressed happiness and a bit of mischief."Sempai! I got you a present."
Forgetting all about Setsuna, the pigtailed lad perked up, "Really? What is it?"
Grinning to herself in delight, the young girl teased him, "It's a surprise." Taking him by the hand, she led him out of the house, leaving Setsuna to fend for herself, "C'mon, I wanna show you."
Fifthteen minutes into the trip, Setsuna was regretting trying to follow Hotaru instead of staying behind. Even without the low fashionable heels she was wearing, trying to keep up with two energetic kids was a bit beyond her.
It didn't help that Hotaru now considered roof-hopping a standard casual mode of travel.
It also didn't help any that the trip was almost entirely uphill.
The only consolation to it however was the view. The architecture and materials used in the buildings was beautiful, with a lot of beautiful stones in use. After all that had happened, seeing the blue sky was quite welcome as well.
Most stunning of all however were the ships merrily floating through the sparse clouds. In her viewing of the Earth through the time gates, Setsuna had become a bit jaded, but no alternates of Earth ever had anything so marvelous.
Instead of aircraft and helicopters, these were almost maritime looking ships, though they were adorned with all manner of fins and projections that made them poorly suited to being ocean-going. Whoever had designed them had shown a remarkable dedication to artistic aesthetics, making Setsuna marvel at a civilization that was advanced enough to afford flying ships that were so fanciful in shape.
This was no small observation, as Setsuna was well aware that in everything similar on Earth, form had followed function. Aircraft were built to carry the most cargo, be the most fuel efficient, go just fast enough, and built just durable enough to be safe. The mere design philosophy behind these ships all but screamed that they were designed as works of art first and then put to the engineers to figure out how to make them work.
Such a philosophy wasn't unheard of on Earth, as being beautiful didn't make something any less functional. It did generally however make it more expensive, either requiring more extensive designs, more expensive manufacturing, or more expensive materials, though often it required all three.
A similar comparison on Earth would have been cars, $500 for the ugly but functional used one, $10,000 for the plain but functional cheap new car, and from there it merely ramped up with top of the line limited runs being over a million.
Had these been cars on Earth, they likely would have cost billions.
Further sending Setsuna's mind a whirl was that like navy going ships, these came in various sizes. There were some that looked to be about the size of personal cruising boats, while a single massive one that looked to be a freighter floated in the background.
Of course on Earth, something as functional as a freighter never would have been so beautiful and well crafted. Such things were already expensive enough just from sheer size that any frills would have made them too costly to use.
Setsuna may not have been interested in cars like Haruka, but she did have an appreciation for the arts, and any culture that had such a value on aesthetics had at least that much going for them in her eyes.
Surprising as her new fascination with these air ships were, she was delighted to find herself at the port where these floating ships apparently docked. Even better, Hotaru and Ranma were waiting for her near one of the frigate sized ships, apparently waiting for her. Obviously Hotaru had gotten them a nice aerial tour booked, likely planning some kind of romantic moment with Ranma.
As she approached, an gruff older blond man with a cigar hanging jauntily from his teeth greeted her, "Ah, ya finally made it. The lad said we weren't leaving without 'cha, but ya shure took yer sweet time gett'n here. Heh."
Deciding to be polite in this instance, the formally dressed woman brushed his rude comment off, "Well, this is certainly a fine ship. Are you the Captain?"
Looking back at the younger couple, the blond man shrugged negligently, "That's what we were just discuss'n. I said I should be Captain and the lad can be Admiral. He thinks he should be captain, an Angel there thinks he should have another ship before I go abouts promot'n him ta Admiral."
Setsuna for her part had been inspecting her first airship up close, finding even more fascinating design elements. It defied all logic, but as near as she could tell, the ship was made from fine stone and metals. There had to be something amazing to the construction just to allow the ship to hold itself together with materials like that. When the captain's reply continued on, Setsuna suddenly realized that he hadn't given her the simple reply expected. "What? Could you repeat that?"
Frustrated with today's events, the airship engineer tried his best to reason with them, "Look here lad, just let me run the ship, an you can just be the owner who tells me where to go. As Captain I make sure the ship works and handle the little stuff, an that don't mean ya can't tell me what to do with it. It's your ship after all."
Off to the side of the impromptu meeting an orange haired energetic girl jumped into the air, enthusiastically adding, "That's right! Cid's an old grumpy guy, but he can run the ship good. You just leave everything to us and don't worry about it!"
For his part, Ranma sighed dejectedly, still pouting a bit, "...but I wanted to be Captain. Ah well, can we check it out now at least?"
Stopping their arguing, Cid and Rikku turned to Ranma, the energetic girl giving a mock salute while grinning, "Of course! An airship's no fun if you don't get to go flying off all over the world in it, right?"
The clues were obvious, but Setsuna's brain slipped a gear instead of reaching the obvious conclusion as it found something fundamentally wrong with even having such a thought. Morbid fascination with the end of all rational thought spurred Setsuna onwards however, forcing her to ask, "Uh, Hotaru, where is that present you got Ranma?"
Perking up the young girl threw one arm out to point at the ship, proud at her thoughtful present. "Neat huh? I named it the Slyph and Ranma likes it!"
Setsuna's rational brain reduced to toast for the moment, she immediately perked up as a simpler mind took over in absentia, a more eager voice asking, "So, can we go for a ride? Can we? Huh?"
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Valor Phoenix
(Posted Wed, 21 Jun 2006 10:20)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.