Within her little bubble of existence, Setsuna started taking account of what had happened.
That the Gate of Time was now apparently serving as a pub for the supernatural called, "The Last Watering Hole before Eternity" meant something.
It meant she had fudged up. No going back. No meddling with events.
If she was lucky, she'd be able to look in on the senshi and humanity and not hate herself for this mess. As this flux would likely be centered around Ranma, with Usagi being a close second, she looked for the young martial artist.
Instantly she knew what was wrong. The time line was simply a tangle of realities that shouldn't have been able to coexist. Their time-line happened to contain the sailor senshi and Nerima as the oddball spots of Japan. Another time-line had three girls jump from Tokyo Tower into a magical world named Cephiro.
Their worlds were separate and as such those magical girls were unique within those worlds.
This world was a confusing jumble of such things, practically serving as a nexus of magical and mystical worlds. In a way it was much the same as the City of Sigil, only on a world wide and somewhat less insane order.
Mystical martial arts, dragons, beasts, demons, magic school girls, angels, elves, talking cats, dancing rats, this new world had it all and in spades.
In fact, it was somewhat short on humans. Considering the wide array of different races now inhabiting the world, there seemed to be some relation to breeding and humans. Quite simply, a catgirl could only expect to become a mother if she chose a catboy as a mate. The exception was of course that humans were pretty much fertile with every humanoid race. With all of those races around, females in particular had a knack for noticing how good a mate a particular guy might be. The wildcard thing worked differently between the sexes as well. Males could mate with any female without problem, but women had a tendency to change to the race of their mate during their pregnancy to better give birth to their children.
The change was only a few decades old, occurring sometime after World Way II, but sufficiently far enough back that most active adults had been born in the new era. Worse, because human females adapted to mates of other races, early experimentation had seen a marked decline in available human women.
For the most part mating and eugenics was not a concern to the average person. Bearing children was an important aspect of marriage, but beyond basic genetic compatibility the average person tended to be more concerned with other aspects of life and love. Some effort was put into putting human couples together, but that tended to happen more on the social level instead of some organized eugenics program.
That all changed however when bloodlines and power came into play. Demonic kunoichi, angelic miko, cat-girl martial artists, bunny-girl samurai; they all wanted a powerful young man to be with and such multi-racial competition would only start over a human boy.
Which isn't to say just any human would do. With all this influx of power there were still 'common' humans, but there were also those with psychic and magic potential. Psychic gifts tended to be unique to the individual, so they weren't considered much when picking mate.
Magic and magic potential on the other hand, that was something the magical races definitely looked for. Such a human was not only a genetic wildcard that any girl could go for, but one that could actually enhance their bloodline.
Looking at his data, Setsuna wasn't surprised to find out that Ranma was still human and had a decidedly high magic potential. The system they used was quite simple for scoring people, the grades ranging from zero to four. Zero showed a distinct lack of potential. One was rather basic. Two was someone with promise. Three was quite good. Four was top of the field.
In physical power a person's ki and chi was rated. Ki represented the internal life energy of the blood and the ability to become stronger or tougher. Chi represented the life energy mixing with nature in each breath and the ability to project energy blasts or cloak one's aura.
In that scale, Akane Tendou ranked a two in ki and a zero in chi, though she showed the potential to improve at least a grade in either direction. Doctor Tofu ranked a one in ki but a three in chi, making him well suited to healing techniques but not to direct combat. Prince Herb rated a three in ki and a four in chi.
Ranma Saotome rated a three. The remarkable part was that he rated a three in practically everything. Further along that line, he actually rated a three in all sub-elements of magic, including opposing elements. Where other people might rate a three in Light and a zero in Dark, Ranma rated a three in both.
Further, he showed an aptitude for improving those scores, something already demonstrated at age ten when he shifted his wind magic up to a four while letting his earth potential slip to a mere two.
What was irking her even more than Ranma was the place where he was receiving his education in the various arts. Just looking at Mahora academy gave her a headache. Not only was it a huge sprawling magical campus with a mini-Yggdrasil at the center, but it was a magnet school for supernatural youngsters. That of course included the senshi in this mess, but with some 30,000 students it was quite the mess to look through.
Ranma was there officially to protect and develop his many abilities. He could also form pactio, multiple ones at that, though right now his ministra were all older women capable of protecting him. Not only could he be used to breed stronger demons, but any of the various dark kingdoms could simply use him as a power source if they got a hold of him.
Of course pretty much everyone knew Ranma was going to end up with a lot of girls. Considering the fact that he was attending the all-girl's school in a mixed class filled with various potential ministra, even Ranma was clued in on that little fact.
Following a familiar blond with a red bow from class, Setsuna was treated to a markedly different Minako. The fact that she wasn't human in this world wasn't surprising considering the odds, the bizarre part was the blond attending the samurai club. In fact, the blond seemed to be training in all the traditional arts of a Japanese woman and a samurai with a determined intensity that surprised the time guardian.
She's seen Minako chase boys before, but never with such intensity and determination to place herself at one particular boy's side.
Guessing this would be a theme among the senshi, Setsuna surmised this didn't bode too well. Perhaps the universe was getting back at her for doing something forbidden like fudging with reality just to prevent Ranma from having a harem of senshi?
Looking over at the supernatural bar to her right, Setsuna had a feeling that may not have been too far off the mark.
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(Posted Thu, 14 Sep 2006 11:49)
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