Setsuna slowed her breathing as she prepared to enter the museum. She was certain that some force out there was mocking her at this point. How else would one justify that after everything that had occurred, everything she had done, and everything that had been rewritten, that a display of the largest collection of New Earth Kingdom artifacts would be at the Tokyo National Museum.
She needed to know, to see, to understand. A book could only tell you so much, stories retold often to the point the original stories were lost.
What she had learned had already surprised her. The Space Race between the Americans and the Soviets had happened a bit earlier, apparently a lot of the history she remembered had been shifted to an earlier time frame, years in some cases, centuries in others. Technology was developed quicker, humanity’s need to understand that which they saw through their primitive telescopes driving them past earlier lulls in development. Wars still happened, but the reasons shifted. How could one claim to be a Master Race and yet not attain that which sat ruined on the Moon? Religion still raged against history in some cases, words distorted on both sides to show just cause. Even Ranma’s attempts to create a better world had not changed basic human desires of power.
When he had ‘retired’ as it was, returning to the ruins on the Moon to sleep, he could never have known that history would play out much like it had for the other great empires of the old history. Greed, ambition, hatred; the old human ails returned, tearing apart that which he had made, which he had kept together.
One man couldn’t keep a world together, a fact that had made his legend only that much larger, since he had done it. The books speculated that some members of his Guard could still be about, chosen warriors who stood guard for the world. But like most suspected secret societies, no proof was ever found. There were tails of warriors appearing throughout histories. The best example had been what was assumed to be the last gathering of all of them, evacuating the city of Pompeii and its sister city of Herculaneum before Mount Vesuvius buried them.
“Setsuna?”
Blinking, she turned, spotting the Senshi near her. “What are you guys doing here?”
Haruka just snorted. “A field trip or all day in school; what do you think?”
“What’s going on, Setsuna?” whispered Ami. “One moment, everything’s normal. Then after some weird flash, it’s like we stepped into a new world.”
“A new enemy ... or have we stepped into ... the Twilight Zone,” said Minako.
Rei snorted, glaring across the lot towards the assembled school groups; boys from the public schools trying to flirt with the girls from T*A Academy. “It’s more than that. Who the hell is this King Ranma?”
Setsuna sighed, even as Hotaru was spotted at a souvenir stand that was offering plushy King Ranmas. It probably wouldn’t do to tell them that the reality shift had been her fault, let alone why she was doing it. And until she had a full grasp of everything, she wasn’t about to try and fix this. Her luck, it would just make things worse. “History underwent a major shift due to a boy from our time being sent into the past.”
“So we have to go get the cutie?” asked Makoto.
Setsuna shook her head. “The past as in he became Queen Serenity’s consort.”
Michiru just giggled lightly. “Trying to steal the Queen’s lover now, Mako-chan.”
“Is he my Daddy?” eeped Usagi.
Setsuna paused at that. Usagi looked the same, and she didn’t have any evidence one way or the other at the moment to state who Princess Serenity’s father had been in either timeline, so it was perhaps best not to dwell on the subject for the moment. “That is not the issue.
“The issue is that the boy survived the Great Fall and tried to reestablish what was lost.”
“Doesn’t look like Crystal Tokyo to me,” said Rei.
“Humanity is not always a mixture of the best of hearts, Rei,” said Setsuna sadly.
“So he tried, it fell, and we are somewhat in a similar state to what we were in before,” said Ami.
The Senshi of Time nodded. “I have many questions about the shift, questions I felt I would not be able to fully answer from the books available, so I came here to see.”
She then paused and looked at the assembled girls, trying not to flinch at how Hotaru was treating the new toy she had. “May I assume you are all here for a field trip?”
Ami nodded. “From what I have gathered; this is a traveling show of artifacts recovered from the former Moon Palace, as well as the crypt of the New Earth Kingdom’s first ruler. I was quite fascinated to learn how much time, effort, and resources were expended by the world to retrieve his body,” Ami tapered off.
“They didn’t like ... bring our old bodies down as well, did they?” asked Usagi, slightly pale. The image of seeing her own coffin didn’t exactly feel right. She wished Mamoru was there with her, but his group had already headed inside.
Setsuna shook her head. “If what I read was correct, your old bodies were sealed in a tomb on the Palace grounds, something that even till this day, the research bodies based on the Moon have yet to open.”
The girls blinked. “There’s a permanent moon base?” asked Haruka, eyes wide.
Setsuna nodded. “Once some translations were done, they were able to activate some life support spells and such. Also given the higher technology levels of this new timeline, I’m not too shocked. But they aren’t making full scale colonization plans yet.”
“Should we be worried what might happen if we get to close to the dead guy?” asked Makoto. “I mean, will we ... wake him up or anything?”
Shaking her head, Setsuna turned towards the assembling student groups preparing for their own tours. “I’m not sure, but be careful. I have no idea how anything in there will react to use. And my extent of knowledge of all the shifts is barely minimal. We must be careful.”
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(Posted Sun, 30 Dec 2007 22:41)
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