Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Destiny ❯ Chapter 4

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

A SMARTALECK PRODUCTIONS

Destiny

By arun

Chapter#04
Completed on 07/23/2001

This is a Ranma 1/2 - Sailor Moon crossover with certain aspects of
Ramayana.

Disclaimers:
Ranma and the cast members of Ranma 1/2 are owned by Rumiko
Takahashi and Shogukkan. Rumiko Takahashi is one of the most brilliant
people to walk on the face of this earth. We the fans of the anime world
are forever indebted to her for giving us Ranma and co. Thank you Rumiko
Takahashi for bringing laughter back into our lives.

Sailor Moon and its characters are owned by Naoko Takeuchi, Toei
animation and KODANSHA.

I do not own the characters of both these shows, nor do I even
pretend to own them. This work of fiction is but a tribute to the above
anime shows.

Guys:
!....! indicate thoughts.
In the first and second chapters indicates Japanese and "..."
indicates Chinese. In all the other chapters, the reciprocal is true.
\...\ indicates Tamil as it spoken and \\...\\ indicates Tamil
translations.

****************************************** *****************************

Surya examined the sailors and licked his lips. The appetizers
were over and now the main course was being served. "Finally some toys
to play with. Can I break your arms?" he asked. "I wonder how your
virgin blood tastes?" He spoke in that manner because he wanted to make
the sailors angry. Angry opponents make serious mistakes, which can be
capitalized on.

"Shut up and die monster." replied Rei.

Surya stopped his speech. He did not stop his examination
however and he continued to examine and taunt the fiery one. "I will
kill you last. You and your leader have more inner's strength than any
of the others. I will torture you last and if you are lucky I might even
deflower you." he announced and licked in lips in anticipation.

Rei's cheeks flushed red. *How dare that... that thing think
such thoughts about her?* "Die! Mars Fire Soul!" A stream of fire raced
towards the Ashura.

Surya smirked and produced two obsidian sickles from his back.
He dodged the blast and focused ki into the sickles. The blast hit an
abandoned car behind him and the car went up in flames. The smirk turned
into a lopsided grin. "Now all of you die." he announced with an
annoying smirk on his face. The fiery one was asking for it by loosing
her anger so easily.

Rei grit her teeth and launched another attack, "Mars Firebird
strike!" A bird of fire formed and flew towards the Ashura. This time
however, Surya did not move and the blast of fire hit him full force.
His aura bloomed into a white-hot inferno of energy and countered the
blast.

When the blast died away he stood in the middle of the scarred
and smoking pavement and his eyes turned from light green to bright red.
Without prelude, he leapt into the offensive.

******************************************************* ****************

Ryuu had one look at the thing before he decided that it was
evil. It had six arms and was dressed in some strange fashion, which he
could not recognize. It was the one that had attacked the pedestrians
without any warning and therefore it must be evil.

"Sensei we have to help those girls." he exclaimed a bit too
loudly.

Ranma put his index finger on his mouth and 'shhed' him. "Quiet
boy." said Ranma. It seemed that the boy was itching for a fight.
Obviously Ryuu's enthusiasm and the 'I am invincible' bravado that a
teenager possessed in such large quantities were working overtime.

Ryuu tried once again. This time though he kept his voice low.
"Sensei, we have to help those girls."

Ranma's eyes did not stray from the battle. "No, we will not
help them. At least not at this instant." he replied.

"Huh! But sensei those girls are out matched and it is a martial
artists duty to help the weak and needy." he said. Ryuu's training
voyage with Genma had imprinted in him the code of conduct of a martial
artist. Genma rarely followed it of course rather sending his son to do
the work during their travels but the lessons had been learnt none the
less.

"Those girls...", Ranma paused as he pointed his index finger
towards the battle, "are the sailor senshi. I am sure that they can take
care of themselves." replied Ranma though he knew better. He had already
analyzed the combatants skill levels and had decided that the sailors
were going to get their asses kicked.

Ryuu shook his head. He wasn't fooled by Ranma's attempt at a
lie. "You are lying sensei. Those girls are nowhere near as skilled as
that thing and they are going to lose no matter what they do."

Ranma turned a little and eyed his kohai. He was a little
impressed. Obviously his little brother possessed a lot of raw talent.
"Yes, Ryuu, you are right. However, we will not help the sailors until
they are in big trouble and they are very much in need of our help."
replied Ranma.

"But sensei I have heard a little about the sailors and they are
the good guys. I also think that thing is evil. I am willing to swear my
life on that."

"Ryuu, no one knows the sailor senshi's ultimate goal and I am
not willing to get myself involved in a war of which I know nothing
about." replied Ranma. *The boy is young and his inexperience is showing
through though he does have a point about the sailors. They seem to be
the good guys but we can't be sure.*

Ryuu did a double take at the battle and spoke. "Sensei this is
but a fight and not a full scale war." *What's up with sensei? Is he
nuts or something? I don't think that six people fighting against each
other constitutes a war.*

Ranma smiled in reply. It seemed that his brother though a great
fighter lacked the important skills of observation that was a sine qua
non of an experienced warrior. "Believe me, Ryuu, this s a war and they
are the combatants. You see that shadow over there..." Ranma pointed
with his index finger towards a shadow by an alley.

Ryuu nodded. He could see a shadow in one of the alleys on the
opposite side of the road. Though he could see it, he did not have the
least idea why his sensei would bring that up. It looked like someone
was hiding there. *Its just some pedestrian hiding there and waiting for
things to calm down.* He thought.

"That, my dear student, is another one of those six-handed
things. That one is hiding because that one is serving as the
reinforcement for that thing the sailors are facing. Whoever commands
those things anticipates more players in this game of death. I think we
can safely assume that the expected players are the other members of the
senshi team. That thing is there to surprise the other sailors when they
arrive and hopefully prevent them from turning the tide of the battle."

"Other sailors?" *Is sensei right? Are we really witnessing a
war?* Ryuu's mind was overwhelmed. A war between super powered girls and
some sort of evil monster was the last thing he expected to see in
Tokyo.

"Oh yes, Ryuu! There are other sailors. It is because of that
fact I am not inclined to help in this battle. Who knows what will
happen when those other sailors arrive. They might be able to turn the
tide of the battle. Moreover, the sailors have a reputation for
attacking first and asking questions later. They might even attack us
and then we'd have a major problem on our hands."

Ryuu was still not convinced. A martial artist's code of conduct
said that they were supposed to help the weak and abused. The girls were
weak and even though they might turn against their rescuers, it was his
duty to protect them.

"Look Ryuu, those things are not unnatural." said Ranma. he
could sense that his kohai was still not convinced.

"They sure look unnatural to me, sensei." replied Ryuu.

"Yes they do appear unnatural but they are not. You see Ryuu,
demons are unnatural. They do not belong in this plane of existence nor
do they belong in any other. On the other hand, Kappa, Tengu, Kitsune,
Oni etc., are all natural. They may be powerful spirits and some of them
have bad reputations, which they deserve but they are not unnatural. If
a demon is present in any plane of existence nature itself works to
banish it. Demons are creatures from the huge expanses of void between
the different planes. They belong there and it is their natural abode.
However, if they try to move into a plane they are trying to move into
something that is not meant for them and as such their continued
existence in that plane is resisted by nature. Though demons can be very
powerful, they can bring only a very small portion of that power to bear
if they came into a plane. The rest of their energy is spent trying to
resist nature. Therefore demons always have a unnatural feel about them
and I cannot feel such an aura around that thing."

Ryuu filed away this bit of information for use in the future.
You never knew when a tiniest bit of information might come in handy.

Ranma continued. "That thing whatever it may be is not a demon
but a creature of nature. Therefore, we cannot interfere in this war.
Those things may have a reason for attacking the sailors and we do not
know what that reason is. Until we do we cannot go and stick our heads
right into the war. I..." Ranma paused, his brows creased in
concentration. "I know I have heard old stories about those things
somewhere but their identity eludes me." said Ranma pointing to the
Ashura.

"Are you sure you have heard about those things sensei?" asked
Ryuu. He had never heard about six-handed freaks of nature during his
travels or during his stay at the Amazonian village.

"Yes. I have heard about them. I am sure of it." Ranma paused.
"Rest easy, my dear student. We will help the sailors if they really
need our help and their teammates have not arrived. Until then, we will
not join the fight. Is that understood?"

Ryuu nodded.

********************************************************** *************

Sailor Moon, the heir to the throne of the Moon kingdom, stood
surprise written all over her face. The surprise was mixed with another
emotion - anger. *How dare that six-handed bastard speak in such a way
to my friend?* The Moon princess normally did not allow such words pop
into her mind but the thing had offended Rei and Usagi was very
protective of her friends.

She readied her tiara and focused mana into it. Giving her
customary pose she shouted, "Moon Tiara Acti... Ugh!".

*********************************************************** ************

Surya almost smiled at the attack that the fiery one had
launched at him. The blast was weak even by mortal standards. A skilled
warrior with some proficiency at ki manipulation and a decade or two of
experience would have thrown a blast far more powerful than that one.
*The sailors have become weak. They are not even a threat anymore.* He
mused to himself. *However, I must obey my Lord's command and get rid of
them. Maybe I can toy with them before ending their wretched existence.*
Thought Surya as he attacked.

As he ran forward, his ki enhanced senses told him that a single
mortal was hiding in an alley in the block to his right. *He is a
skilled one but he is not skilled enough to pose a threat to me though
he might be more than Indra can handle. He is young and his aura is
really
tasty. I will track him down after the battle and eat him after I am
done with these pests. Oh! How I long to taste human flesh once mor...*
His thoughts were cut off when his senses picked up the rapid gathering
of mana for an attack.

Without wasting an instant, he leapt into the offensive. First
up was the most powerful of the pests, the one who was their queen. She
was very powerful though she was in a way, the weakest member of the
group. From the way her ki flowed through her body, it seemed that she
did not have the least bit of skill in the art of war. She was the only
one preparing for an attack and that made his job all the more easier.
He could concentrate only on her for the precious second or two when he
would be rushing in for the attack. His defenses were at their weakest
then and
it would spell disaster if the sailors scored a hit so early in the
fight. With a speed that easily rivaled the Kacchu Tenshin Amaguriken,
Surya ran towards Sailor Moon. His hands were extended and his body was
surrounded in a white halo of fire, his body's manifestation of his ki.
His sickles glowed yellow under the influence of the ki he was focusing
through them. His saffron dhoti tied in a katcham allowed him complete
freedom of movement. Katchai style of wearing dhoti's was particularly
designed to allow maximum flexibility and was well suited for the
Ashura's modus operandi in times of war. The Ashura's strategy placed
more import on skill and agility then on brute power.

Sailor Moon saw his incoming attack and threw her tiara at him a
little too early in the hope that it would buy some time for her to
escape his attack. However, Surya was too fast to be caught in that mis-
timed throw and he easily maneuvered out of the incoming weapon and got
into Sailor Moon's defenses.

The senshi had always practiced the 'stand and deliver' routine
and Sailor Moon was a stringent follower of that stratagem. The typical
'stand and deliver' routine worked fine if your opponent used the same
strategy but when your opponent mounts a blitz you are done for. The
stand and deliver is very useful in confrontations in which both the
sides are more or less immobile and have weapons whose rate of fire is
very low. In confrontations where mobility and rate of incoming attacks
were high, the strategy is a death warrant and a disaster waiting to
happen.

The Ashura's were skilled warriors whose fighting philosophies
emphasized speed and agility over brute power. In any battle situation
your typical Ashura would dodge blows as they were thrown at him and
then come in for the kill. The Ashura's were powerful and immensely
skilled ki adepts but they preferred the sweat and blood of hand to hand
combat to ki blasts. Though they used long range attacks whenever they
felt that the situation demanded one, they simply did not use ki
projection attacks as their primary weapons. If your opponent was
skilled enough they might adapt to ki attacks very quickly and your
primary weapon would become useless against them. Therefore they used ki
blasts sparingly in battles.

As a result of the 'stand and deliver' strategy, Sailor Moon
remained static the entire time she gathered the mana for her attack.
That was the biggest mistake anyone can make against a highly mobile
opponent. History had shown many a time that in a war strength alone can
never guarantee victory - The Spanish invasions of the English isles,
the allied invasion of Iraq were prime examples. You do not stand still
against a fast and agile enemy and fight against them. It is tantamount
to committing suicide.

When Surya got into Sailor Moon's defenses she was still static
and it was child's play for an agile and experienced warrior like him to
attack her. He started the attack with a supersonic ki enhanced kick to
her midsection. Sailor Moon's breath was driven out from the blow and
her body flew, bent under the force of the kick. Surya had no intention
of letting off for a second. He ran after her at the same speed as the
Moon princess to keep their bodies at rest relative to each other and
sunk one of his sickles into her shoulders.

Sailor Moon's eyes clouded with unshed tears and her rapidly
dilating pupils clearly showed the pain that ripped through her body.
Blood dripped from her mouth partly due to the injury that she had
suffered and partly because of the fact that she had bitten her lips to
keep from screaming out loud. Surya still ran after her. With a jerk
that tore even more flesh and bone he pulled out his weapon and
increased his speed just a little until he was inches from her face.

He then slowed down just a little and spun around, his right leg
extended for a spinning kick. His leg glowed blinding white and easily
broke the sound barrier as he began his attack. His inertia kept his
going whilst Sailor Moon's body moved a little further from him. His leg
swung and connected with a thump that could be clearly heard throughout
the block. He had judged the ki enhanced kick perfectly and his foot
connected exactly where he had aimed. Usagi's head snapped to the side.
The blow would have killed a normal man but Usagi's 'magic' saved her.

Sailor Moon's jawbone broke under the attack and her direction
of flight changed. Forces measuring several hundred gees worked on her
body and she momentarily fainted. Her body flew towards a wall and
crashed into it. If the wall had been made of a spider web several feet
thick it could have withstood the awesome force of the impact.
Unfortunately it was made of plain reinforced concrete and it exploded
inwards. The shrapnel's instantly killed the old aged couple who were
hiding in the room. The impact slowed down her a little but Sailor Moon
still flew, albeit at a slower speed and impacted against another wall.
This wall too shattered into a million pieces of dust, pebbles and steel
cables. Her velocity decreased appreciably and her body landed on the
hard and unrelenting concrete floor. Her inertia kept her body moving
and she skidded and bounced off the floor and came to a halt against
another wall.

Outside the building Surya's enhanced hearing picked up Sailor
Moon's resting-place and he made a mental note to go there and kill her
once he was done with the others. With a wicked grin on his face he
turned towards the other sailors and spoke. "Who's next?"

*********************************************************** ************

Rei Hino in the guise of Sailor Mars stood still her mouth agape
at the
sight that she had just witnessed. Sure her best friend and team leader
Usagi was a klutz and not the most skillful fighter in the world. She
bungled a lot of her attacks and rarely did things right. However, on
this fight she had done everything perfectly and yet had ended up being
beat up. The thing had went through her as though she was a twig or
something. Even their most powerful enemies had not been able to
accomplish that and Rei was shocked more than she had ever been in her
life.

She was also astonished to see the thing in action right in
front of her eyes. It had moved so fast that even with her magically
enhanced senses its movements had been but blurs to her.

Her astonishment and shock quickly gave way to anger and finally
to fear. Her mind realized that the sailors were indeed toys to it. She
also realized that it was playing with them. That realization was enough
to send cold shivers down her spine.

*********************************************************** ************

Minako stood her eyes the size of saucers staring at the spot
where Sailor Moon had impacted against the concrete wall. In just three
seconds the strongest member in the team and one of her best friends had
been defeated by something that had looked like it had come out of a bad
horror movie at first sight.

If anyone had asked her a minute ago she would have said that
their team
was invincible, after all, they had fought against the best that the
Negaverse could throw at them and still survived to tell about it. Now,
she knew that they had been wrong all along. The ease with which the
monster had defeated Sailor Moon their future queen and princess for the
time being, proved that fact without an inch for doubt. There was no way
anyone would have won a battle against Moon so easily if they were not
vastly more powerful than her.

These thoughts gave raise to fear. Fear so primeval that it was
imprinted into the very genes and she stood, her muscles unable to move
and defend herself if she were to be attacked.

******************************************************** ***************

Ami AKA Sailor Mercury was astounded. There simply was no way
that anything could move that gracefully. The way that monster had moved
was poetry in motion. She was sure that even their new sensei, whom she
suspected was more powerful than he cared to show to the outside world
would not be able to move that fast. The speeds at which their adversary
had moved would have put huge strains on his body and she was sure that
without 'magic' no one would be able to move that fast. The strange
thing was, there was not even the slightest flicker of 'magic' or mana
or
whatever you may call it on its body though the readings for the energy
that Queen Beryl had directed her forces to steal were higher than she
had previously believed possible.

It was _logical_ to assume that anything that could move that
fast must spend insanely large amounts of energy to sustain the speeds
at which it moved. However, the readings from her instruments proved her
wrong. She had checked her instruments and double-checked them but the
energy readings never varied. The thing was slightly more powerful than
Mars but the advantage it possessed in terms of speed and mobility was
incalculable. Realization dawned to her that they were in serious
trouble. They had to stand still if they were to attack and by the looks
of what had happened to Sailor Moon their future looked grim if they
chose that option. They were caught in a catch-22 situation and she
could see no way out of it.

She had to warn her friends before they rushed into a fight they
could not hope to win. There was the slightest of chances that the thing
could be _defeated_ but only if the
remaining four of them _coordinated_ their attacks perfectly.
Unfortunately, Sailor Jupiter had other ideas.

*********************************************************** ************

Makoto AKA Sailor Jupiter was mad, very mad. *I will not let
that monster get away with hurting Usagi and speaking of Rei in such a
manner.* No one treated her friends like that and got away with it. Her
blood boiled at the way that thing had hurt Usagi and her body ached for
revenge. Makoto's years of loneliness had made her treasure her
relationship with the inner's more than life itself. She would be loathe
to let anyone get away with what the thing had done.

"I will kill you for hurting my princess. Supreme Thunder!" she
cried out and focused the mana through her tiara.

The lightning bolt hit her tiara and she sent the energy at the
Ashura. The energy hit the shield and threw back the Ashura a few feet.

************************************************************ ***********

Surya cursed himself for letting his thoughts stray. He had been
gloating over the quick victory and one of them had used the opening he
had left and attacked him. He could have been hurt though the injuries
he would have suffered from the blast would not have been serious.
However, the blast would have reduced his agility and then the chances
of him winning the battle would have become remote. Thankfully, his ki
protected him by shunting most of the energy.

He shook his head as he got up. He would not make the same
mistake twice and he would fight very hard to defeat the sailors. He
would make sure that this battle was their last. He smiled to himself.
There he was, not even a match for some of the less skilled fighters in
his clan and the senshi were not even a match for him. His king would
conquer the mortal realm without too many casualties and when the
mortals had fallen to their army, the God's will follow.

He assumed his stance and was about to attack when a field of
soap bubbles covered everything.

****************************************************** *****************

"No!" shouted Sailor Mercury when she saw the thing taking a
stance. "Jupiter, get out of there before it kills you. Shabon Spray!"

The entire area got covered with soap bubbles that her attack
produced. The defensive ring of bubbles had always protected the sailors
and disoriented their enemies whenever the sailors needed time
to regroup in the past. Against all the other opponents, it had worked
perfectly. Though their enemies had been either magical creatures or
'magic' wielders, they used only their eyesight and not their magical
senses to see and observe the world around them like the sailors
themselves. However, against an
Ashura the technique that had worked for them so many times in the past
failed miserably. The Ashura's used their finely tuned ki senses to
maximum advantage in any fight and the sailors did not have any ki
cloaking techniques in their arsenal of attacks and defenses. As such,
they were at a severe disadvantage. Sailor Mercury was the only sailor
who had the necessary equipment to sense him and the others were at his
mercy.

*************************************************** ********************

Surya silently laughed to himself at the girl's obvious blunder.
His opponents were now blind and he had complete advantage on the
battlefield. He had never been one to look at a gift horse in the mouth
and he wasn't about to start doing now. The sailors had made it that
much easier for him to kill them and he would comply with their wishes.

His aura blazing like an inferno about him Surya leapt once more
into the attack.

First up was Sailor Venus. She was the sailor nearest to him and
naturally, it was logical to attack her first. His ki roared about him
with even greater intensity as he focused it and ran towards her. He
gripped his sickle lightly and twirled it as though it was an extension
of his own hands. The concrete on the pavement cracked under the heat of
his aura as he ran over it. His sickles hummed like a tuning fork as
enough ki to blow a block to kingdom come was focused through it.

Surya's speed was such that he was but a blur all through his
charge. He came to rest a yard and a half before Venus by using his ki
to absorb the inertia of his body. The girl looked at him and she did
not move. It appeared that she was paralyzed by her fears. *And one of
them is a wimp!* He thought as he swung his sickle at her stomach. No
quarter would be offered nor will it be given when begged for. This was
a fight to the death and the senshi were the ones who were going to die,
he told himself. The sickle missed her stomach by nearly a foot but a
deep gash appeared on her abdomen and blood gushed from it. The
technique he was using accomplished the same thing as the neko-ken claws
though his worked differently. By focusing on the sickle and the air
that surrounded it, Surya was able to 'extend' the cutting edge of the
sickle by nearly a foot. This was done by tapping into the ki flows in
the area and it would have been easily sensed by a ki adept though even
they would have had a hard time evading it.

Surya had no intention of letting her get off so easily however,
and he focused a little amount of ki into one of his remaining four arms
and shot it at her. The blast hit Sailor Venus right in her chest and
she flew and impacted against a lamppost. Venus's flight was abruptly
brought to an end and she lost consciousness. The metal would not resist
the force that was applied onto it in so short a period of time and it
bent and deformed. It creaked irritably as it did and Sailor Venus slid
off it and came to rest on the pavement. A pool of blood collected on
the ground around her. Even as she slid off the pole her 'magic' began
to heal her and made sure that Sailor Venus would live to fight for
another day.

Ami's sensors picked up the attack. She realized what was going
on and cursed herself. She should have known that the thing had super-
senses. The soap bubbles would take another minute or two before they
dissipated naturally and they did not have that much time on their
hands. Knowing that she was close to her friends without having anything
with drove her nuts. A fighter like Rei would have fired a blast at the
monster and hoped that the time she had bought would be enough for her
friends to save themselves. However, Ami wasn't Rei Hino, she was Sailor
Mercury, the brains of the outfit and as such she thought before she
acted.

She knew that if she attracted the thing to herself she would
most probably die and her friends would follow her shortly on a lovely
trip inside a coffin or an urn to the local cemetry.
No, sacrifice was not the option. She needed to get rid of the soap
bubbles and rid themselves of the deathtrap that she had created. If she
could somehow do that then maybe they had a slight chance of getting
through this confrontation alive. She concentrated and let the mana flow
through her. She knew that she had precious little time before the thing
assaulted the next sailor and therefore she concentrated more than she
had ever before. She tried to hide the mana as best as she possibly
could and then she released it with the shout, "Shabon Spray Disperse!".

The wall of soap bubbles faded out of existence just in time for
Jupiter to dodge the sickle as the Ashura slashed at her mid-section. A
tendril of white extended from the sickle and it left a trail as it
blazed through the air. The senshi of Jupiter was the best hand to hand
fighter among the inner's senshi and probably the best fighter amongst
all the senshi and she was very proud of that fact. Now, she evaded as
fast as she could as slash after slash was executed. Some of them were
too close for comfort but she wasn't complaining. She was lucky to
survive those near misses and she tried her best to get more luck on her
side.

**************************************************** *******************

Surya turned towards most significant threat that remained
standing amongst the accursed sailors. The girl's ki was slightly
focused and he was able to sense that the girl had some martial arts
training in her. She was probably the only one who had any reasonable
chance of
surviving his onslaught and he was determined to eliminate her before
the others decided to lend her a hand.

Surya was no fool. He knew that it was only a matter of time
before the girls decided to coordinate their attacks. It was the
soundest strategy against a technically superior but numerically
inferior opponent. Even his strategy would fail if all the sailors
decided to attack him at the same time. One of them may attack while the
remaining two kept him moving and on the defensive. He could not take
their attacks and come out unscathed and if they did coordinate both
their attacks and their defenses successfully there was chance that they
would succeed in eliminating him.

The girl was tiring very quickly. She simply had not the
endurance to keep up the blistering speed for very long. His attacks
were getting closer and closer to home and his lips salivated in
anticipation of the smell of fresh blood. Blood lust had overtaken him
and it drove him on in his relentless onslaught.

******************************************************* ****************

Mercury watched that thing go after Jupiter and to her relief,
her friend was able to evade it. She knew that Jupiter would not be able
to hold out for long and that Jupiter needed help fast if she were to
survive another minute.

"Mercury Aqua Magic!" she shouted and launched the attack. The
only other time she had used the attack she had fainted because of the
strain that it created on her body. She had tired to control the flow of
ki during the first time and that action had did her in. This time she
focused only a little on the attack and tried to disperse all the extra
mana into the atmosphere instead of trying to contain its flow. Her plan
worked and she was able to do a less powerful version of the same
attack. The ball of ice broke into many fragments and each of these
fragments headed towards the thing.

*********************************************************** ************

Surya was very close. His nostrils flared with the expected
smell of freshly shed blood. *I have her now. Soon I would have carried
out my Lord's command and these pests will be no more.* He thought
happily to
himself.

He knew that the sailor pest he was fighting with would last
another two or at the most, three slashes before he tagged her with his
attack. The extended range of the sickle was a huge blessing and if it
were not for that, he was sure that the bitch would last much longer
against him. He slashed upwards with his right hand and the ki blade
sliced through the strand of hair that blew about her. The hair had not
even began its journey down to the earth when he retrieved the sickle
and pulled back his left hand for another go. *See you in hell bitch!*
He thought. The left arm had began to move forward when he sensed mana
being focused. Cursing his luck under his breath he abandoned the attack
and leapt into the air.

************************************************************* **********

Jupiter's muscles ached under the strain that she was placing
upon them. Even with all her 'magic' she did not have the endurance to
fight at such grueling speeds for an extended period of time. She
backpedaled as yet another slash, this one directed up, missed her face
by mere inches. Her hair was not so lucky and she felt them as they were
cut. The amount of focus that she was using had made her hypersensitive
to her environment and she felt the slightest gusts of wind on her face
as the sickles continued their onslaught.

*I won't last much longer.* She thought bitterly to herself. The
thought of her death did not strike terror in her heart as she had once
thought it would. She had died before and though she knew that this time
she won't be coming back, she felt detached from the situation.

The thing pulled back its left arm and began to swing its sickle
at her. *This is the last one.* She thought even as she tried to evade
it. It was a hopeless cause, she knew as much as that thing did but she
was not about to give up hope and die without it. Growing up alone in
the world she had often encountered such situations, it had been her
hope, and perseverance that had seen her through those situations. She
would fight or rather evade till the end. It might buy her teammates a
few precious seconds and those seconds might end up saving their lives.

The thing seemed to pause in mid-attack for the briefest period
of time. Its mind seemed to be in a state of turmoil. The look
disappeared as soon as it had appeared and the thing leapt straight up
into the air.

Time seemed to stand still for Makoto. She had been just given a
second chance at life. She heard Mercury shout out real loud 'Mercury
Aqua Magic'. Makoto thanked the kami and rolled away. She did not plan
to be in the thing's path when it landed on terra firma once more.

************************************************************ ***********

Ami saw the thing jump into the air to avoid her blast but she
deliberately delayed it until it was near the apex of its flight. Then
she let loose her attack. The thing turned around in mid-air and fired a
huge blast of energy at her. She jumped out of the way but the resulting
explosion still knocked her off her feet.

She closed her eyes and waited for her death. She knew that she
not fast enough to evade it should it choose to go after her next. The
seconds tickled by but the attack never came. She opened her eyes and
looked around. Jupiter was holding out her hands to her while Mars was
busy trying to fry the thing with another of her fire based attacks.

She took hold of Jupiter's hands and got up. "Thank you
Jupiter."

Her fellow senshi nodded in acknowledgment. Time was not on
their side and they could not afford to waste it.

"I have a plan that just might work." she shouted as loud as she
would. Over the din of the flames that sprouted out of Mars's hands it
was barely audible. "We might win if we cover each others back. Keep
moving and don't let that thing get near you. If it approaches you just
evade and let the others attack it. Try to move while you launch your
attacks and cover the others back."

Rei nodded and Jupiter dipped her head slightly in
acknowledgment.

******************************************* ****************************

Surya turned around in mid-air and as he did so, he focused a
basketball-sized ball of ki onto one of his hands. He hurled it at the
green haired sailor who had attacked him. The girl threw herself out of
the way but was still caught in the explosion that ripped away the
concrete and left a meter deep ditch where the ki ball had hit.

Even as he released the blast at the sailor he brought his two
sickles before him and then slashed downwards at the attack that the
sailor had thrown at him. The clash of the conflicting energies produced
an explosion, which threw him back. Surya flew through the air and
smashed against a building. The wall was dented but it did not break.
Gravity took over and Surya fell. He righted himself in mid-air in a
move that was as nimble as a cats and landed on his feet. He let his
body be as relaxed as it possibly could be to decrease the forces that
acted upon his body and rolled with his sickles tucked away. He thus
absorbed the energy of impact and eyed the sailor who had dared to
attack him with raised eyebrows. She was still on the ground with her
eyes closed
presumably waiting for her death.

*Pathetic behavior.* He thought to himself. *Maybe I should end
her existence right now.* He hated cowards and it seemed that two of the
sailors were cowards at heart.

However, fate had other ideas and one of the other two attacked
him. He dodged away from the fire and ran around her staying just out of
the range of her fire. She would not be able to keep it up for long and
when she grew tired, she would die. The flames ignited everything in
their path and the whole area filled with smoke from the burning
buildings.

******************************************* ****************************

Ami and Makoto ran towards Rei and stood some distance from her
on both sides. Rei stopped her attack as soon as they had assumed their
positions. The four of them stood admist the burning ruins eyeing each
other and waiting for the other to make the first move. It was the
Ashura who made the first move. Being on the defensive against a
coordinated enemy is asking for death to come a callin' and he knew that
very well. If he were kept on the defensive his most significant
advantage would be lost and with it, any hopes of winning the battle
would be lost as well.

Surya ran forward and the senshi scattered. He went after the
brown haired bitch first. She was the one most tired from her recent
encounter with him and he planned to take her out of the equation
completely. He attuned his senses to a degree of perfection that had
been lacking before and charged forward, his sickles blazing like the
corona of the sun towards the bitch. His senses easily picked up the
other two moving towards his back in an attempt to flank him. A blast of
mana was fired at him from a hundred yards from his back. He moved out
of the way and adopted a zigzag pattern of advance. It would take a
while with the other girls at his back but he would kill the bitch in
the end.

His speed was somewhat lesser than his previous top speed as he
had concentrate a significant portion of his consciousness to detection
of attacks but that was a sacrifice worth the effort. Without his senses
to warn him of incoming attacks, he would be toast in a minute or two.
His partner Surya was hiding in the background but he doubted whether
that sadistic freak would turn the tide of the battle.

Surya came at Jupiter attacking as fast and as furiously as he
possibly could. He knew that it would take a lot to get the girl but in
the end it would be worth the effort. Without her skills and backup the
others would die and his Lord would reward him and his clan for a job
well done.

The brown haired bitch easily avoided his attack. His speed had
diminished to her level and as things were she had the upper hand in
battle. Though her skills were in no way comparable to him she had the
help of her friends and the old saying 'united we stand and divided we
fall' held true to her situation.

The sickles ripped through the air leaving ionized air in its
wake. Jupiter evaded the blows with difficulty and jumped in the air. He
was about to follow her when his danger sense sounded. The blast was
very near to him and he did not have the time to leap out of the way.
The mana hit the ground behind him and the ground blew up. He tucked in
his arms and legs and rolled with the blast. He came to rest some fifty
yards away with several bruises on the right side of his body.

*That's it!* Thought Surya and shouted "I will not lose to the
likes of weaklings like you and fail my Lord.". He had concentrated so
hard on sensing the attack that he had been unable to erect his ki
barrier in time to defend himself from the last attack. The attack had
wounded him and he lacked the necessary skills to heal himself. The
wound would heal naturally but his reflexes and speed would suffer
during the battle. There was still a possibility of victory he knew, but
the odds were now stacked heavily against him. He could retreat and
others more powerful than him could be sent to destroy the sailors but
he refused to consider that alternative. Retreat was dishonorable and he
would rather die than live without honor. He closed his eyes and tapped
into the ki flows in the area. His body began to shine a shade of
unhealthy blue and the power readings on Ami's console kept on climbing.
The sailors tried to stop him with some attacks but the ki barrier he
had erected around himself was just too strong.

********************************************************** *************

"Wow! What is that thing made off?" remarked Ryuu as his ki
senses went into overload. The thing had become an inferno of ki all of
a sudden.

Ranma's face had become grimmer by the second for the last half
a minute or so. The technique that the thing was using was one of the
most deadly ever developed. Every person or thing had a limit for ki
storage that should and normally could not be exceeded. However, users
of the technique were able to flood themselves with ki and gained
enormous power for an hour or so before he or she collapsed and died.
The technique was used often in times of war when fights to the death
were common. A skilled warrior who chose to use the technique would
level an entire army before he died from the side effects.

Ryuu looked on in wonder, his mouth agape at what the thing was
doing. The thing was soaking up the ki in the area and if the look on
his sensei's face was any indication it looked like the Sensei were in a
lot of trouble. Even his ill-tuned senses could pick up the energy that
radiated in huge waves from that thing and he was sure that if Cologne
or Happousai had been with him they would have suffered a stroke or
something.

"Ryuu..." said Ranma quietly.

Ranma had to repeat the call several times before Ryuu responded
to him. The boy was in a stupor and Ranma had to shake him out of it.
"Hai sensei." replied the fifteen-year-old heir to the Saotome branch of
Matsubeto Katuto Ryuu smartly.

"I think that the necessity for our intervention increases by
the second. When we do try to rescue the girls I will take care of their
opponents while you move the girls to that building over there. When you
had done that stay with them till the fight's over, Is that understood?"

"Hai sensei." replied Ryuu.

Ranma nodded and turned towards the fight once more. He relaxed
and began to draw ki and mana into him in anticipation of the battle
that was about to come. The things could not possibly sense his
preparation as he was using a technique the likes of which they could
not even begin to comprehend.

****************************************************** *****************

Surya howled in pain and anger. The ki that was coursing through
his body was both a blessing and a curse. He had little control over his
senses and he had become supersensitive. The little flecks of dust that
hit him every now and then and the radiated heat from one of the fires
were giving him a taste of hell. He rose into the air, his fists
clenched tight as pain shot through his body. He would make his clan
proud and kill the sailors before he died.

Since his hypersensitivity ruled out hand to hand combat he
threw both his sickles at the brown haired one. The sickle sped at
several times the speed of sound and impacted against the asphalt on the
road. Jupiter tried her best to get out of the way but the sickles were
too fast for her. She had not taken three strides when the sickles
exploded. The ki that had been stored in them broke its prison and
escaped violently. The sickles blew up as a result and Jupiter's back
became a pincushion as several hundred sharpnels embedded themselves in
her body. The blast was relatively small and it threw Jupiter only a
couple of feet. Her hands extended up through the flight and she let out
a scream of agony. She lost consciousness before she hit the ground and
lay where she had fallen. Her 'magic' worked on making her whole as she
lay in Morpheus's embrace.

Surya tried to laugh but his body responded with an unnatural
groan. Blood dripped in drops from his body but he did not care. He had
a command to execute and honor to bring to his clan. The black haired
bitch attacked him once again with one of her fire blasts. The blast was
weak and his ki barrier repelled it without any undue stress on his
dying body. He tried to laugh at her weak attack but that laugh too came
out as a groan.

The whore launched another attack. It too was as ineffective as
the first one. He focused large ki balls on all his hands and threw them
at her. The whore tried her best to escape but she was as unskilled a
fighter as they came. Even then she was able to evade four of the balls
but the last two hit the ground just a few feet behind her. The twin
concussion waves picked her up from the ground and slammed her face
first an exposed steel girder from a building. She lost consciousness
without so much as a moan and slid to the ground where she lay in a
bloody heap.

Surya eyed the cowardly one. She was the last one standing.
After she was dead he would kill all the others and die a honorable
death, his duty completed. Even through all the pain that flooded his
brain and body he looked at her and managed to smile evilly.

********************************************************** *************

*'I am sorry... I am so sorry...'*

*'You are just a failure, you failed all of us!'* replied Rei
and the others. They looked sadly at her, their eyes filled with pity as
though she were a beggar that they might pass on the street.

*'We thought we were your friends. You proved us wrong. You are
nothing but a crybaby and coward.'* They mocked her. Her very own
friends mocked her.

*'I am not weak.'* She muttered, her eyes brimming with tears.
*Was she not supposed to be their friend and future queen?*

*'But you are!'* They replied. *'You were supposed to protect us
and there we were always trying to protect you. You failed us Usagi. You
failed to protect us.'*

She cried. She cried and ran. However, no matter where she went
the voices, those familiar voices mocked and followed her. Everything
was black around her and no matter where she ran there was not a speck
of light anywhere. There was nothing except for the voices of her
friends, distorted and mocking following her everywhere she ran trying
to escape them.

"Usagi..." A soft voice spoke.

It was Mamoru she realized.

"Usagi..."

"Mamoru..." she whispered.

"I am here Usako." he whispered back lovingly. He had found her
bruised and battered. She was bleeding profusely from the wound on the
shoulder and he applied his healing 'magic' on her. The bleeding slowed
down and finally stopped. Her bones and flesh healed and the wound
closed.

Her vision cleared and she opened her eyes. A black blur
appeared before her. Momentarily the blur condensed into the concerned
face of the man she loved, the man who would one day be her future
husband and king of the reincarnated Moon Kingdom, Mamoru. She tried to
sit but pain shot down her entire body in protest. Her eyes roamed
around and she saw a pool of blood with her in the middle. The shoulder
wound had sealed and she could feel the bones and tissues mend under the
healing 'magic' of her lover.

"I have got to help them fight that thing." she whispered. Her
lips split when she opened them to speak. Her lips had never felt so dry
in her life.

"You stay here Usako, I will help them."

"No!" she replied as loud as she could. Droplets of blood oozed
out of the split lips. "I have to help my friends." she replied, her
voice again dropped to a whisper. They were her friends and she would
never abandon them.

"Please Usako, you are in no condition to fight. Lie here and I
will help them." *Her voice after all that she has gone through still
has that irrefutable tone that a queen should have.* He mused to
himself.

She shook her head adamantly as a result of which pain shot
through her body. She grit her teeth and glared at him. *Doesn't he
understand that as their queen it is my duty to take care of them and
protect them?* She thought to herself.

Mamoru sighed in frustration. She was in too bad a condition to
fight but she refused to let her friends fight without her. Loyalty was
one of her most endearing qualities and it refused to abandon her even
in the condition that she was in. She was in no condition to fight and
she would not fight if he could help it.

"All right Usako, I will take you there but you have to promise.
You will not fight anymore this day. Do we have a deal?" He was
determined to not let her fight. *The other sailors would have to make
do without her just this once.* He thought to himself.

She nodded.

He thanked the kami for making her see a little reason. "Come
Usako, I will carry you there." he said and slid his arms underneath her
broken and bruised body.

Pain shot throughout her body and she bit her lips to keep from
screaming out loud. She was sure that if she screamed Mamoru would not
take her to the scene of the battle. Blood dripped from these fresh
wounds drop by precious drop onto the dusty floor below. She blacked out
twice while he lifted her as the pain proved too much for her weakened
body.

Mamoru looked at the battered body of his future wife and shook
his head in wonder. She never failed to amaze him. She possessed courage
and inner strength far beyond her age and as he watched her struggle
against her pain his pride, respect and love for her grew by leaps and
bounds.

He shifted her battered body in his arms carried her the rubble
that her impact had created. There were dents here and there and the
smell of freshly caked blood and death was everywhere. He passed through
the holes that her body her created and gingerly set her by a wall
taking care to make her as comfortable as possible. He removed little
flecks of concrete that were embedded in her pale skin and kissed her
gently on the forehead. He normally was not so expressive in public but
the situation demanded a kiss. It was like some part of him wanted to
kiss her one last time before he went into battle.

He rose up to go but Usagi somehow managed to raise her arms and
grab onto his. He turned around and knelt by her side. Their eyes met
and their faces inched closer to each other. He opened his mouth and
closed his eyes. Their lips met midway and they kissed. The kiss did not
have any amount of lust behind it. It was filled with care and love. It
was more of a confirmation of their commitment and love for each other
than of
physical attraction. Mamoru's hands slid around her body and he hugged
her, drawing her body into his
protective custody. Finally she broke the kiss and looked lovingly at
him. Her body seemed to have recovered some of her colour and she had a
little of that happy look that she always had on her face. By some
unspoken signal she let go off his arms and he caressed her blood caked
cheek with his hand. "I love you very much Usako." he said and stood up.
The kiss still lingered in his mouth and he could taste the salt from
her sweat and the metallic taste of her blood in his lips. He would make
whoever or whatever that had hurt her pay for her injuries and the pain
that she had suffered. He turned and hopped onto a roof and looked at
the battlefield.

There was rubble everywhere and small fires burned her and
there. The smoke from them rose to the skies above. There was smoke
everywhere and though it did not reduce visibility in any way it put
some stress on the respiratory system. There were huge holes in some of
the
building and the whole area looked like a battle zone.

He saw that all the other sailors had fallen and that only
Mercury stood. She had a look of absolute terror on her face and was
staring up into the air. He followed her gaze and got his first view of
the enemy. _It_ floated in the air some thirty feet off the ground and
it's entire being was focused on Mercury. The thing, whatever it was had
six arms and a halo of energy swirled all around its body. It looked awe
inspiring and yet terrible at the same time. It was as if that thing was
death incarnate. It evoked a fear in him so primitive that it was
embedded in the genes themselves. His entire being was filled with
horror. It had a smile on its face that sent cold shivers down his
spine. He shook himself out of the stupor and formulated a plan. It was
obvious that the things attention was focused upon Mercury as his was on
it. He readied a set of explosive roses to throw at the thing. His
'magic' was not as powerful as the sailors but he knew that strength
alone did not win wars. He had proven it many times in the past when he
had helped the more powerful sailors in their battles against the
minions
of the Negaverse. He was too focused on his plan and on that thing
before him that he did not notice the one creeping up behind him until
it was too late to run.

*Something's wrong here!* He realized. He was standing in plain
sight and the thing even though it was focused entirely on Mercury could
not just ignore it as it was doing right now. When the amount of power
that it wielded was taken into account that single fact meant nothing
but something told him that it was all wrong. Though he would never
admit to it his intuition had never failed him before. He had felt it
during his first encounter with Usagi and many times during their later
adventures when he or any of the others were in grave danger. He turned
and saw...

*********************************************************** ************

Indra had observed the fight with great interest. From the
moment the first shot had been fired by the sailors he had known that
Surya would win in the end. His comrade in arms had fought bravely and
fiercely bringing honor to his clan and to himself. Indra envied him a
little. The Ashura was little over two thousand years old, young
compared to his fifteen thousand years of life and experience. Yet Surya
was more skillful than him. It was taken for granted amongst the
Ashura's that given time Surya would become one of the best warriors
under his majesty Raja Chola's command. The millennia of imprisonment
had not been wasted by the Ashura's. They had trained hard and had
become abler fighters. Some of them had abilities that bordered on the
miraculous. It had not been in vain. He was sure that he could take on
any one of the sailor whores and beat them in a fair fight.

Indra had seen the way Surya had dealt with two of the whores
and it had been magnificent. The execution and timing of the attacks
were prefect and the blows had been devastating. Then Surya had gone
after the brown haired one and amazingly enough she had been able to
hold out against him for nearly three minutes, a long time if you took
into account both their skills or the lack thereof on the part of the
sailor whore. The sailor's movements had been as graceful as a tortoises
but her mana manipulation had seen her through the situation. Surya had
taken too long a time to take her down and in the end he failed to
accomplish even that. The whore escaped with her life just in the nick
of time and the one of the others had come up with an effective strategy
to be used against his comrade. Surya had tried to take them on with his
own powers but it was fairly obvious that his skills were inadequate for
the task at hand.

Indra envied his partners mental toughness. It was a quality
that he lacked very much. Indra knew without a shadow of doubt that if
he had been caught in such a situation he would have run for his life
and let his honor rot in the mud. His self preservation instincts were
fairly strong and he knew that old saying 'He who fights and runs away
lives to fight another day.' quite well. However, Surya had done
something that was not only foolish but also extremely heroic.

Surya had overridden and flooded his bodies ki storage
capacities and had essentially given away his life so that he may get a
chance to take the sailors. Honor was always a strange thing and it made
men and God's alike do strange and illogical things.

With a slightly heavy and envious heart Indra had gone back to
his duty and had observed the fight. According to the plan that they had
made together he was to watch and observe the fight and be on the
lookout. It would not do if there was any outside interference during
the course of the battle. Indra had did so and he had sensed one mortal
fairly early in the fight. The mortal had kept to himself and had not in
any way tried to intrude into the fight. At first Indra had thought that
the
mortal was very smart or stupid. His monitoring of the mortal had led
him to conclude that the mortal belonged to the former category. The
mortal's ki though fairly focused was not completely controlled and he
had been able to sense the change in the mortal's emotions as the mortal
had witnessed the various stages of the fight. It proved that though the
mortal was inclined to support the whores he was also wise enough to
realize that his interference would not make a difference in the fight.

Indra had promised himself that he would hunt the mortal and eat
him after the sailors were dead. Since the primary hunt was near its end
the familiar stirrings for blood had taken root in Indra's mind. Though
not the blood thirstiest of the Ashura's he was certainly not one of the
mild hearted ones like Surya. He enjoyed the taste of warm blood in his
lips and his fingers ached in anticipation as the time drew nearer. He
longed to feel once more the hopeless and tehe electric feeling that
radiated in a death struggle whils a mortal's struggled
vainly for his life in his clutches.

About the time Surya had initiated the technique he had sensed
another mana manipulator in the area. However, when compared with the
sailor senshi this newcomer was weak and could be easily taken care off.
Since the newcomer did not pose any threat to his partner, Indra had let
him be. He had even let the fool carry the sailor leader from her
resting-place.

When the fool had gotten too close to the battle Indra had
decided to not take any chances. Thus the secondary hunt had began.
Indra had stalked the mortal like a tiger stalked its prey. The fool was
as weak as they came and he had not even realized that he was being
stalked. Indra had been very disappointed. He had hoped that the mortal
would have the animal instincts but the mortal seemed to be the epitome
of the weak state that the mortals had reached after the prison had been
created.

Indra stopped a couple of yards behind the mortal. Surprisingly
the mortal had sensed him and turned around. *Perhaps this hunt will not
be a total waste.* Thought Indra as he revealed his glorious persona to
the mortal.

The mortal's face showed a variety of emotions during the next
couple of seconds. He seemed to be shocked at Indra's sudden appearance
and his face showed it clearly. Then the shock gave way to revulsion,
fear and finally hatred. His face grew pale and he looked ready to puke.
The mortal clutched his cane tightly and glared defiantly at the Ashura.

Anyone would tell you that the sight of a six-handed thing with
medium sized fangs protruding from its mouth and a halo of fire nearly a
foot thick is fearful. This was the sight that confronted Mamoru AKA
Tuxedo Kamen when he turned around. Throw in an eye that glowed an
unnatural shade of red and a pair of sickles, which also glowed red, and
you got the stuff with which nightmares are made off.

"Scream for me!" spoke Indra and attacked.

******************************************************** ***************

Tuxedo Kamen turned around and nearly fainted. He was not faint-
hearted but the thing that stood before him evoked primitive emotions in
him. Feelings of utter horror and revulsion. It opened its mouth and
said something but in his state of shock he could not discern what it
had said. Then it lunged towards him.

Tuxedo Kamen found himself between a monster and free space. The
thing did not look as fearsome as the first one and it moved at
Jupiter's normal speed. Given his not so great background in the arts
and his weak mana manipulation abilities Tuxedo Kamen found himself on
the defensive.

The thing lunged at him with an angled slash and he back
pedaled furiously as the slashes almost hit home several times. Mamoru
released his hold on the cane and warded off one particularly fast slash
aimed at his mid-section. He threw the roses at it to cover his retreat.
The thing slashed at the roses and they exploded. Tuxedo Kamen breathed
a sigh of relief but he was not out of the woods yet. His celebrations
were cut short as the thing emerged through the smoke, its halo of fire
as strong as ever and winked its eyes. He realized then that he was
nothing but a plaything for it. Before he had gotten his guard back on a
black ball of energy appeared on one of its arms and it released the
energy at the ground below his feet at point blank range.

Tuxedo Kamen tried to evade but he was too slow and the blast
was fired at very close range. The ki projectile exploded and threw him
up into the air. The top of the building collapsed and the thing jumped
into the air after him.

************************************************************* **********

Indra laughed to himself as the mortal blocked one of its
slashes. The mortal tried to cover his retreat by throwing some roses at
him. The Ashura general easily sliced through them all and they
exploded. Indra ran into the smoke screen, winked at the mortal and
summoned a ball of ki. Before the mortal could react he threw the ki
ball at the ground near the mortal's feet.

To Indra's amusement the mortal tried to evade but he was too
slow and clumsy. The ki ball hit the concrete roof and exploded. Pieces
of concrete, steel rods and dust flew into the air at high velocities
and the roof collapsed. The mortal was thrown off the roof and Indra
leapt after him. *The fun has only began and he is not getting away from
me that easily. I am not done with him yet.*

Air rushed past Indra's body, picking his hair up and tossing it
as he flew through the air. He reached the mortal at the apex of his
flight and as the mortal began to fall back onto the ground he spun
around and delivered a kick to the mortals chest. He heard the crunch of
breaking ribs and smiled to himself. He landed softly on his feet and
balanced himself by pushing his hands against the asphalt as he fell
forward. The mortal flew diagonally and crashed into a high rise
building. The force of impact was not large enough to shatter the steel
girder into which he crashed. There was a momentary 'Thung!' as the
girder vibrated and then Tuxedo Kamen slid off the girder and plummeted
to the ground below.

*********************************************************** ************

Tuxedo Kamen crashed onto the ground. The impact forced the air
out of his lungs and he felt and heard more ribs break on impact. Blood
gushed out of his broken nose and pooled on the ground. When the dust
cleared. He shook his head, an action that hurt a lot and got up shakily
onto his feet. Standing sent waves of dizzying pain through his body and
he grunted and clenched his fists until his knuckles popped. A huge
spike of pain shot through his chest and then stabilized itself. The
pain began to grow in intensity. With his knowledge of the human anatomy
and wounds, Tuxedo
Kamen realized that his lungs had been punctured. He fought the fainting
spell that threatened to send him into the oblivion of unconscious and
glared defiantly at the thing that had landed before him.

"Scream for me." it said in a guttural voice and then it charged
once more.

Tuxedo Kamen's world became one of pain and screams from then
on.

***************************************************** ******************

Indra landed before the mortal who was visibly struggling to
stand on his legs. "Scream for me." he said once more and charged the
mortal.

At half distance he turned the sickles around and changed the
amount of ki that flowed into it. The flow of ki turned into a trickle,
the sickle would not be sharper but it would be a hell of a lot stronger
now.

The mortal stood wobbling on his legs but his defiance and
hatred showed plainly across his face. Indra did not care for anything
but the screams of pain combined with the smell of fear and blood as he
lunged at the mortal.

********************************************************** *************

From Tuxedo Kamen's perceptive the thing disappeared from where
it stood and then appeared right in from of him. It again shouted
"Scream" and attacked.

He raised his right arm to punch it. The right side of his body
screamed in protest and the pain in his chest intensified. The punch was
clumsy and the thing easily blocked his punch with one hand and then
brought its sickle to bear on the arm. The sickle made contact with the
elbow joint and the elbow popped. Mamoru howled in pain and struggled
weakly. His arm was now pointing backwards and bone protruded from it.
Blood trickled onto the ground and splattered before collecting in a
little pool below. The thing did not let go off his arms however. Its
eyes had a far away twinkle in them and it grinned joyously. It applied
pressure on his twisted arm and jerked it. Mamoru screamed once more as
white hot
tendrils of pain shot through his arms. He clawed at the air and lost
consciousness.

The thing looked like it was enjoying the torture session very
much. Its face took an expression of pure joy just like a child's, when
you
gave him a new toy to play with. It cackled in glee and slapped Tuxedo
Kamen on his face. Little drops of blood splattered all around from his
broken nose and he regained consciousness. It grabbed him his other arm
and kicked his legs from underneath him. Mamoru hit the ground and
screamed in agony.

*********************************************************** ************

Indra was besides himself with joy. He had not had that much fun
in ages. The mortal was weak but he seemed to be able to withstand huge
quantities of punishment. *Lets see how much pain he can take and still
cling to his life.* Thought Indra.

He grabbed the mortal by his hair and pulled him up. The
mortal's spirit burned as bright as it had been before the fight and he
continued to glare in defiance at him through the mask of pain that his
face portrayed. The mortal spat on his face and Indra calmly removed the
spit with one of his free arms. He tightened his hold on the mortals
hair and applied pressure on his chest. The mortal screamed into his
face as the broken ribs were dislodged.

Indra laughed and brought the blunt end of one of his sickles to
bear on the mortals fingers. The bones snapped and the blood dripped
from them. In his bliss Indra had failed to notice that the mortal had
lost his consciousness once again and therefore he did not scream when
Indra broke his arms. Indra howled in fury and slapped the mortal pretty
hard on his face. The mortal regained consciousness and opened his eyes.
Indra let go of his hair and punched him in his face. Blood splattered
from the new wound to his cheek.

*********************************************************** ************

Tuxedo Kamen fell on his back and moaned in pain. His right eye
was shutting up as the muscles swelled. He coughed up some more blood
and tried to crawl away from the thing. His entire body hurt like hell
and his difficulty in breathing was increasing by the minute. Even
though his healing 'magic' had mended the tear in the lung the gases
that had escaped was still trapped inside his chest cavity and the last
blow to the chest had not helped. It had again injured his lung and he
could feel a new air bubble growing in size inside him.

Like a child he crawled, his bones and muscles screaming in
protest. The seconds seemed like an eternity and he was constantly
fighting waves of dizziness. *I am sorry I failed you Usako.* He thought
just before a kick landed on his midsection. Mamoru fell to the ground
and groaned. Another kick was planted in the abdomen followed by
another. He coughed up some more blood and tried to get up but
collapsed.

He heard someone crying in the background but was too dizzy to
identify who it was. He lay there waiting for the beating to continue.
"Usako, I am sorry I failed you." he murmured before he lost
consciousness.

****************************************** *****************************

Usagi sat where Mamoru had seated her. From where her battered
body leaned against the concrete pillar she was able to look out
through the hole in the wall and witness Mamoru's torture. His screams
of pain were heartbreaking in their intensity and her heart was filled
with hatred and revulsion towards the beast. Even the infamous Beryl,
the one who had destroyed everything in the Silver Millennium and killed
her mother had not been the cause of such hatred in the Moon Princess's
mind.

She tried to get up and join the fight but she was too weak to
do so. Her muscles screamed in protest and refused to contract and push
her fragile body up. For the first time in her life Usagi truly cursed
her weak and inept body and cried in utter anguish. The man whom she
loved more than her life itself was being beaten to death right in front
of her eyes and she could do nothing about it. True she had seen her
friends die before but they had not suffered even a fraction of what
Mamoru was going through. The thing was just beating up Mamoru and it
seemed to be enjoying every single moment of the torture.

Tears of frustration flowed freely down her cheeks as she
watched the inhumane treatment meted out to Mamoru. The tears flowed
over the bruises that adorned her beautiful face and they stung but she
did not care. Weak battered and disheveled as she was she cared for only
one person and that person was Mamoru.

"Aahhh!" she cried as pushed herself off the pillar. Her body
hit the ground and pain shot through her side. She grit her teeth in
order to bear the pain and crawled towards the hole in the wall. Soft
breeze blew over her body and tried to move the blood caked strands of
hair on her head to no avail. Sharp pieces of concrete scraped against
her body and drew blood whenever they dug too deep into her soft flesh.
The ten foot crawl to the hole seemed to take an eternity. The stench of
death combined with the smoke from the small conflagrations that raged
across the battlefield was over powering to her senses.

She pulled herself to a sitting position using the jagged edges
of the concrete for support and raised her blood caked arm. She tried to
use her 'magic' but her body refused to channel mana. She was in too
weak a condition to channel any significant amount of mana without
risking her own life. She focused within herself and found her center
and once again tried to use her 'magic'. This time her entire being
seemed to hum with the small amount of mana that flowed through her
body. She collected the mana in a basketball sized ball that pulsated in
a range of colors and swirled around itself.

"Dragon's fire!" announced Usagi and threw the ball of energy at
the beast. Her aim was poor and the blast missed the beast by a good ten
yards but it did grab the beast's attention. It stopped kicking Mamoru,
turned its head toward her and growled with unmistakable malice.

********************************************************** *************

Indra looked down upon the mortal who lay twitching and grunting
on the ground. The mortal had ceased trying to get to his feet after the
first kick for even a mana enhanced body can take only that much level
of pain and get back for more. He tried to get up one last time but
coughed up some more blood and collapsed onto the cold and unrelenting
asphalt where he lay groaning. Drops of blood mixed with saliva flowed
out of his mouth and collected underneath his face. His eyes were glazed
and his breathing was labored. The kicks seemed to have ruptured his
spleen if the rapidly spreading red bruise on the mortal's abdomen were
any indication of the internal injuries he had inflicted upon the
weakling.

Indra was about to launch another kick to his midsection when
his ki senses flared. Someone was forming a ball of pure mana. Before he
could turn around the blast was released and the ground floor of the
building by his side went up in flames. If the blast had been to the
mark he would not have survived the attack. Indra's face paled a little
at the thought. He cursed himself for his inattentiveness and turned
towards the source of the blast.

There sat the leader whore of the sailors her hair matted
together and her eyes brimming with tears. Her arm dropped to her side
even as he looked at her. Her face was contorted with hatred and she
glared at the Ashura general. Her ki was laden with hatred the likes of
which even he had never encountered in his entire life. Indra realized
that the whore was in love with the mortal and an evil grin appeared to
his face. He knelt down and grabbed the mortal and told him to witness
his lovers torture but the weakling was unresponsive.

He snorted in disgust and released the weakling. He walked
slowly towards the whore. Her eyes maintained contact with hers through
the walk and if looks could kill
Indra certainly would have died a thousand times over under her glare.
"Kitten, you know not who you are playing with." said Indra and drew
back his hand. His fist opened and the arm came down to meet the whore's
face with a resounding clap. The whore's lips split and her face
reddened but her glare did not waver in the least.

"My! My! Can the Moon Princess possess such hatred and skill?"
he wondered aloud and drew back his hand once more. Only a few of the
more powerful Gods were able to create blasts of pure mana and for a
mortal to do it was quite astonishing. Most manipulators simply
converted the mana into one form or the other and then used it to
perform the task.

************************************************************ ***********

Usagi was surprised at the power of the blast. It seemed so
natural when she had first summoned it. It was as if the energy that
coursed through her body was tailor made for her. Her hatred and despair
faded momentarily as the raw energy coursed through her body but
returned full force when the she ended the attack. The beast too looked
surprised at the blast and it showed clearly on its face. She also saw
another expression painted all over its face as it turned towards her.
The expression of pure fear quickly faded away though and was replaced
by a smirk when it saw her battered body.

It closed the distance between the two of them with its eyes
focused on her. She maintained the eye contact and glared back with an
intensity that frightened her to the core. She was surprised that she
could feel such hatred towards another being even though it was a
monster. Her hatred had its roots in the very core of her being and it
made her want to rip its heart out. Her body lacked the strength to put
these thoughts into action however, and she found herself cursing her
weakness repeatedly. The thing was upon her in what seemed like an
instant and said "Kitten, you know not who you are playing with." before
it slapped her hard.

Her teeth rattled under the force of the blow but she refused to
break eye contact and glared back at it. It pulled back its hand again
and slapped her much harder than before. Her cheeks stung under the blow
and her neck muscles screamed in protest but she maintained the glare.
The beast said something before it slapped her but her ears were still
ringing from the first blow and she could not discern what it had said.
The beast grabbed her by her hair and pulled her body up. They stood
with their faces inches apart glaring at each other. The thing laughed
and then punched her in the midsection.

Usagi fell to the ground and gasped for air. She heard a cruel
laugh just before her world disappeared in a haze of red as the beast
kicked her savagely in the head.

************************************************************ ***********

Ami stood paralyzed with fear. The speed and efficiency with
which the other sailors had been removed from the battle struck terror
into the very heart of her being. When they had first put their plan
into action she had thought that the plan would work and the thing would
be defeated. The minutes that followed seemed to lend strength to that
belief. She had been so sure of victory when one of her attacks had hit
the monster. The thing had gotten back on to its feet after the attack.
That was to be expected. Anything that powerful would probably keep on
coming back for a lot more. It had spat some words at them and then it
did something. She was not sure what it had done but suddenly it's
energy readings shot sky high and had gone off scale. The situation had
deteriorated steadily after that.

The thing had gone through Rei and Makoto, the two most powerful
fighters amongst the inner's sensei as though they were walls made of
paper. Those two were the most powerful besides Usagi and that thing had
defeated them with impunity. Her mind was overwhelmed with the amount of
power that was needed to put those two out of commission. If that thing
could defeat those two so easily she did not even want to think of how
easily that thing would defeat her. Ami's role amongst the inner's
sensei had been as the thinktank much as Pluto served the outer's. She
knew without a shadow of doubt that in a pitched battle she could not
take on the thing and live to tell about the experience.

Ami had never been consciously afraid of death. She had wondered
about it and had spent hours at a time pondering about what death really
was but she had never been afraid of it. Before she joined the inner's
she had thought that death was but the ceasation of electrical impulses
in the body. After they had become a team she had laid aside her
scientific mind and had began to accept that science as she knew it had
its holes. She had slowly accepted that there was such a thing as the
soul. She had realized for the first time that death meant peace till
the next cycle of rebirth was initiated. The most convincing evidence to
this new found belief had been her resurrection after she had been
killed in the last battle against the Negaverse. Usagi had used the
power of the Ginzishou to bring their souls back into their bodies.
Though her memory of what had happened after her death was sketchy she
remembered a sense of true peace and a soul warming presence, which had
literally oozed love. Since that experience she had even started to
secretly worship the kami. She was afraid that her friends would tease
her if they ever found out. Even the great Ami Mizuno feared peer
pressure and therefore she had kept her it a secret. Her new found faith
grew by the day and unknown to even the inner's she had made several
visits to the shinto shrines in the area.

Now for the first time after she had donned the mantle of Sailor
Mercury, the great Ami Mizuno, the brains of the inner's sailors was
afraid. Not because she feared death but because she knew at an
unconscious level that the thing that they were facing was worse than
death ever could be. It was not unnatural like the various daemons and
youma that they had faced before. It was a part of nature, her
instruments told her and her brain inferred the same from the facts that
lay before her eyes. There simply was no way an unnatural creature could
ever be in harmony with nature. Her mind knew without a shadow of doubt
that the thing was the dark side of nature, a side not normally visible
to human eyes. Her analytical brain had worked feverishly during the
course of the fight and had come up with several possible theories. The
most probable one was that the creature was some kind of anti-God. The
idea seemed outlandish but the Yang was always counteracted by the Yin.
The Gods with all their love must have something that counter balanced
them and this creature seemed like the perfect explanation for it.

It was this realization combined with the ferocity of the
thing's attacks that struck fear in her heart. Ami was sure that the
thing would kill them if things went its way. Even though she did not
fear death she very much wanted to stay alive and live a long and happy
life. Survival is a basic instinct found in all living things and
everyone wants to live life to the fullest. It was the fear of a
premature death at the hands of an anti-god that rendered Ami Mizuno AKA
Sailor Mercury paralyzed. She knew that Usagi was able to bring back the
dead. She herself was living proof of that fact. However, as things
stood all of them were about to have an early appointment with their
maker. Even if Usagi survived the fight through some miracle, Ami knew
without a shadow of a doubt that Usagi would fail this time around. Even
Usagi's powers paled in comparison to a God's.

Ami steeled herself and got rid of her fears. She was a sailor
first and foremost and as such she cannot be afraid of a monster or of
death itself. The fear returned with a vengeance and she shook her body
to banish those thoughts. *I am a sailor and if I have to die I will die
like one fighting to the last breath.* She thought and then it struck
her - a way to survive and possibly kill that thing.

"Take your best shot." she shouted at the thing.

*********************************************************** ************

Surya floated in midair with wind howling all around him. The
wind was a direct result of the huge amounts of ki that he was
manifesting. It buffeted his shoulder length mane of curly hair as it
blew. It picked up dust particles and once in a while these particles
would collide with his supersensitive skin sending waves of unbearable
pain through his body. It was his superior constitution that kept him
from screaming aloud everytime a fleck of dust hit him. Small streams of
blood flowed from these wounds as his sweat glands in the injured areas
pumped blood out of the body. The amount of blood that he had lost would
have killed even the sturdiest Ashura but Surya's ki kept him alive for
the time being.

The cowardly one's ki turned more and more chaotic as he
maintained eye contact with her. It was a sure sign of her fear and
Surya would have snorted in disgust if his body was in any other
condition than the one he was presently in.

The least movement on his part resulted in a ridiculously large
amount of pain and he was loathe to move his body unless he had a good
reason for it. Then suddenly her ki became slightly organized though the
action seemed to be strained. He
appreciated that. It would have dishonored him if he were to kill a
sniveling coward. Even better the sailor spoke defiantly against him.
"Take your best shot." she said and he got ready to do just that.

Surya decided to address the cowardly one then. Disregarding the
pain that shot up through every nook and corner of his body Surya spoke.
"I am death sailor and you will not escape me." More blood spilled from
his mouth as the capillaries inside his mouth burst when his tongue
pressed against them. The blood flowed across his bare chest but he was
beyond caring. His body's was failing faster by the minute and the only
thing that mattered now was the death of the sailors. The level of pain
that
he was enduring would have killed a mortal or even an Ashura many times
over but Surya focused above it and onto the job at hand.

"I have died once and I live now beast. Death has never scared
me and you do not scare me now." she shouted in reply. The last flickers
of chaos in her aura was gone now. To his sensitive eyes her ki was
shining brighter by the second. Surya revised his earlier judgment on
the girl. She was obviously a strong one at heart though the strength
had taken a while to shine through.

"Thou art truly a gifted one sailor. Under any other
circumstance I would have let thee and your friends live for the five of
you shine like beacons for the rest of the mortals to follow but nay I
cannot let thee live. My Lord has commanded me to kill thee all and I
will obey my Lord's command." Surya coughed some more blood as he spoke
in archaic Japanese. His hair fell in patches and drifted off into the
wind.

He summoned several large balls of ki. He could not afford to
delay the fight any longer. He could feel his death approaching and he
wanted to execute his duties before it took him into its embrace. The
sailor shouted "Shabon spray!" and disappeared from view behind a veil
of soap
bubbles.

*Maybe the girl is just plain stupid. It didn't work before what
makes her think it will work now?" Thought Surya as the ki balls rapidly
grew in size.

************************************************************ ***********

Mercury smiled to herself. It seemed that the thing had fallen
for her ruse. She decloaked the mana that she had gathered and shot it
at the thing. No matter how many opponents she had faced their
foolishness and lack of forward thinking never failed to astonish her. A
warrior was supposed to think through an opponents strategy and find a
way to defeat them. If you had the wrong strategy your skills and power
would fail to make a difference and you would most probably perish in
the battle. With a wrong strategy you would simply get squished by an
inferior enemy. One of the best examples was the Scottish charge
- they simply get on top of a mountain and charged. The speed of their
attack simply overwhelmed their opponents before they knew what hit
them. The strategy was so effective that the English had a hard time
with it until one of their commanders came up with a brilliant counter
strategy. This counter strategy as well the English army's own version
of the highlander charge was to make the English army one of the most
feared in the world. It also helped a lot in winning them an empire
where as they proudly said in the height of their power
'the sun never set'.

For a warrior to take attacks at face value and just counter
them was the stupidest thing that he could ever do in his life. A battle
can be compared to a chess game in which you pit your brains against
your opponents, only in this version of chess there's a lot of real
blood and gore. In fact chess was but a battle simulation in which one
could sharpen one's thinking and planning prowess. The Indian version of
the game was created solely for the above mentioned purpose and it was
aptly named chatranga. After she had gotten over her initial shock and
fear Mercury's mind had gone back to working at its peak efficiency. She
had come to the conclusion that though her opponent was very powerful an
excellent tactic might bring about his downfall. It would buy some time
for her friends and delay the inevitable until rescue arrived in the
form of the outer's. She had seen the blood on its body and her sharp
mind had made the connections. The thing was apparently dying and the
technique that it was using seemed to be quickening its demise.
Naturally it would be in a hurry to defeat them and it would
naturally make mistakes. She planned to capitalize on them as much as
possible in her last ditch effort to save her friends.

Mercury was not the brains of the outfit simply because she had a super
computer literally under her finger tips. She was the brains of the
outfit because she was the shrewdest and most capable one amongst the
sailors. She may not have the raw power that the others possessed but
her brains more than made up for that fact. In a fair fight Mercury may
even be able to defeat Sailor Moon simply because the courageous leader
of the senshi rarely used her brains. After she had become one of the
inner's Mercury had spent many an hour reading and researching about the
great military minds. She especially admired Erwin Rommel, Frederick the
Great, Hannibal and Horatio Nelson. She had learnt during her research
that brute power need not always guarantee victory in war. Shrewd
strategy's played as big a role as any of the other factors if not the
biggest one in winning a battle.

Her train of thought had led Mercury to reason that the thing
would not be on the alert if she used the 'Shabon spray' again. If that
were the case it might be fooled into leaving itself open for an attack.
Frederick the great had used a vaguely similar strategy during the
battle of Leuthen to secure a resounding victory for the Prussians. Like
him she had gathered a lot of mana and then used a little of it in the
'Shabon Spray'. When the thing fell for her ruse she would launch her
main attack and hopefully, that would secure some time for them. She
knew that the power and skill gap was too big for her to win in the long
run but she was sure that she would be able to delay the thing long
enough for the outer's to arrive and save the day.

"Mercury Magical Rhapsody!" she shouted and channeled the huge
amount of mana through her body. The attack combined the Mercury Aqua
Rhapsody and the Mercury Aqua Magic into a far more deadlier version.
Every cell in her body was flooded with mana as it flowed through her.
Mercury survived the huge influx of energy only because she did not try
to control the magnitude of the mana that flowed through her. The attack
still left her weakened physically though as channeling a large amount
of power took its toll on her body.

Almost a dozen balls of ice coalesced and exploded around the
thing and then exploded spreading a fine mist all over the area. Huge
chunks of ice, some the size of a sedan ripped through road and building
alike. The concussion wave left a three meter deep crater directly under
the explosion and all the glass windows in the block that had survived
till then shattered and sent a deadly rain of glass to the streets
below.

Mercury did not even pause to see the destruction that her
attack had caused. She ran for cover as fast as she could. She hoped
that the pain of the new injuries the thing _must_ have suffered
combined together with the pain it was already suffering from would
dampen the things super-senses. If that were not the case she and the
others
would die in a short while.

*********************************************************** ************

Surya howled in pain and raw fury. He could not believe that he
had fallen for such a simple ruse. He, the heir apparent to the post of
supreme commander of His Majesty Raja Chola's army had been fooled quite
easily by a young mortal woman. The affront to his pride was
immeasurable. He raised one of his left arms to shake at the heaven's at
the injustice of it all and send her to hell when he noticed that he
couldn't see his left hand. He then noticed something warm flowing on
his cheek.

He brought his arm to his cheek and felt the liquid. It was more
blood and it came from a puncture wound to his left eye. He was bleeding
profusely though the bleeding seemed to be slowing down. *I must have
lost almost all my blood.* He thought to himself with a shrug. Neither
the injury nor the revelation about his blood surprised him. Though he
had pumped as much ki into the ki barrier as
he could he had known that it wouldn't be enough to keep the debris out.
By his count three huge and very sharp pieces of ice had headed in a
direct collision course towards him along with a number of smaller ones.

The heat from his ki had vaporized almost all the icicles but it
appeared that several of them had gotten through the barrier. Almost all
that had crossed the barrier had missed him. However, two had scored a
hit and he was bleeding profusely from the wounds. The one that he was
now probing with his fingers was the spot where his eyeballs had been
previously. Now there was a two inch hole gouged out by the ice and
blood gushed from it like water from a fountain. The other wound, which
he could sense was in his right thigh. The part of the icicle that had
not penetrated his flesh had long since melted. The part that had
penetrated was still lodged inside his fragile flesh and the pain that
it was inflicting upon him was mind numbing in its intensity.

With one of his eyes gone he had lost depth perception and with
it his honor for it would be nigh impossible to kill them now. He howled
louder in fury and let loose a volley of ki balls aimed at her. Though
he could see the girl he had no idea how far she was and naturally the
balls ended up hitting everything but her. Chunks of concrete, asphalt
and metal pieces flew through the air. They did not hit Mercury and only
ended up creating more rubble for the city administrators to get rid
off.

A large volume of dust and dirt was kicked up and small fires
burned at the site of the explosions. Surya clenched his fists and
shook them against the heaven. He had been so close to victory only to
have it stolen from him.

The girl, who had now earned his utmost respect stopped and
turned around. She had the biggest smile on her face and it grew bigger
when she saw his gouged out left eye. "You can't judge distances now,
can you?" she shouted and then ran once more, snickering to herself all
the while.

*********************************************************** ************

The mist hit Ami as she ran and she heard a howl of fury
followed by another louder one. Against her better judgment she turned
around and looked at the thing. A smile came to her face when she heard
that cry. Hearing it suffer after all it had put had friends through
brought a perverted sense of joy to her heart. Its face was now
disfigured and there was a hole where its left eye should have been.

*It can't judge distances now!* She thought excitedly to herself
and her smiled grew in proportion. "You can't judge distances now, can
you?" she shouted. She chided herself as soon as she had uttered those
words and ran. Its depth perception maybe gone but for all she knew it
could judge distances with its hearing alone.

The thing sent a hail of energy blasts at her but they were
nowhere near the mark. Ami turned around and stood her ground. Gathering
mana into her body she channeled it with a resounding "Mercury Aqua
Rhapsody!"

The thing brought its hands before it and crossed them as the
blast hit it. Its barrier countered the icicles and they disappeared in
a cloud of water vapor.

She was about to ready another attack when she caught some
motion to her side. She focused on it and saw...

*********************************************************** ************

Mamoru heard Usagi's sharp cry and his heart faltered. With all
his might he pushed his body up. The pain was excruciating but he
managed it somehow. He turned his head and watched the thing plant kick
after kick on Usagi's body. Desperately he tired to think of something
that might take the thing's attention off Usagi.

"Bastard!" he croaked once.

"Bastard!" he tried again. This time it was spoken a little
louder.

The thing turned towards him and bared its fangs.

"Yeah! I am talking to you. Why don't you pick on someone your
own size?" he managed to shout before the pain overwhelmed him once
more. His arms failed and he collapsed to the ground. The thing smiled
and turned its back to him.

"Bastard!" Mamoru shouted in frustration and coughed up some
blood. "Your mother must have slept with everyone in the whole damn
world to produce a bastard like you!" he said. His strength was failing
him and the pain from his
chest and right abdomen was enough to blind him.

The thing turned and growled menacingly. It walked slowly
towards him with death in its eyes.

The beast bent down and grabbed him by his cape. It hauled him
off the ground and pulled him to its face. Mamoru though disoriented by
the pain heard it snarl something in some strange tongue and then it
produced a...

************************************************************* **********

Indra was mad. The mortal had called him a bastard. No one had
ever dared to address him by that title. It was a great insult but he
recognized it for what it was. He was not going to ignore the whore that
lay underneath him. He bared his teeth towards the mortal to warn him
off.

The mortal collapsed from the exertion and he turned towards the
whore. *Now that the weakling is awake, I can rub salt on his wounds by
raping the whore right before his eyes.* Thought Indra as he extended
his arm towards the whore.

The weakling had then said something that made his blood boil.
No one got away with such an insult. His honor demanded that he kill the
mortal and take the weakling's heart to his mother and feed her with it.
He had wanted to play with the weakling some more before he finally
ended his sorry excuse of a life but now things had changed.

Indra clenched his fists tightly and walked up to the weakling
bastard. The affront to his mother was unforgivable. He pulled the
weakling to
his face and gave him some advice in the old tongue.

\Yagawa raayenum nagaka kavakaal
Sogapar sollinukum pattu.\ snarled the Ashura general. He was
sure that the weakling would not understand the verse though it did not
matter whether the mortal understood him. He would not need the advice
where he was going anyway. The demons in the void neither understood nor
would they respect the golden words of Valluvan when they heard it.

He reached behind him and produced his families honor sickle.
Tradition and honor demanded that he use that sickle and no other. The
blade was wicked looking and the surface of the alloy reflected the
light from the fading sun with a wicked gleam.

The mortal's eyes widened when he saw the thing. His ki became
very chaotic and then focused itself again. It seemed that the mortal
had accepted his fate.

Indra growled in anger. He had wanted to see the mortal struggle
and squirm under his hold but it seemed that he would have to make do
with what he had. *Bastard! He defies me even now.*

Indra grinned maniacally into the bastards face and pricked his
abdomen with the sickle. The weakling grimaced a little when the sickle
pierced the skin but that was all he did. He continued to glare back at
him with pure and unadulterated hatred written all over his face.

************************************************************ ***********

There was another beast and it was walking towards the battered
body of Tuxedo Kamen. Ami had wondered during the course of the battle
about Tuxedo Kamen's failure to show up and now she had the answer. She
briefly considered helping him but decided against it. She could not
turn her back on that thing or everyone would die.

She turned back to face her antagonist. She caught a glint of
sunlight as she did and turned towards Tuxedo Kamen once more. The thing
now had Tuxedo Kamen by his cape and it had a wicked looking sickle in
its hand.

A grin of pure bliss came to its face as it inched the deadly
instrument closer to her comrade in arms.

The two of them were very close to each other for her to attack
with one of her 'magical' attacks she realized. *If I run fast enough I
may be able to rescue him.* She thought and ran.

************************************************************* **********

The warrior attacked him with another of her mana based attacks.
It was too weak, Surya realized but he still crossed his hands before
him to protect his face. With the amount of pain that he was suffering
he knew that he could not trust his ki to save him as his focus
faltered.

Surya braced himself for another attack, the one, which never
came. He relaxed his guard and peeped over his hands. She was looking at
something other than him altogether.

Surya felt insulted by that act. Why was she ignoring him? Was
he not warrior enough to face her in battle? The answer came soon enough
when he looked in the direction her gaze was focused.

His blood boiled when he saw Indra busy torturing a weakling
mortal. He had wondered where his cohort had been all through the fight.
Now, he had the answer in his hands and he was not pleased with it. Of
course Indra would abandon his post and forsake his duty so that he may
get some petty thrill out of torturing some poor soul.

Surya cursed under his breath and focused on her. She too was
turning towards him and he felt thankful. If nothing else his death
would be an honorable one. He had done all he could to defeat the
sailors but she had fought back and had defeated him. All that was
needed now was
for her to kill him. He would not submit to her and she would have to
kill him. He was pretty sure that she could accomplish that before the
technique did away with him.

Then to his disbelief she turned back towards the mortal and
this time she ran off towards the weakling. Surya realized that it was
dishonorable but in the face of his Lord's commands honor was to be
forsaken for duty and honor were almost always at odds against each
other. He asked for her forgiveness in his heart and summoned ki into
his arms.

************************************************************ ***********

Ranma jerked back in surprise when he heard those words. It had
been nearly eighteen hundred years since he had last heard anyone speak
that language and they struck a chord in his mind. With this new
revelation, memories of a time long gone came flooding back to him.

He remembered his training under the legendary master Parthiban
and the flirtatious Malligai. He remembered his friends Geetha and
Pradeepan and the fun times that they had shared together. Then came the
sad ones. Images of Pradeepan's last few minutes on earth came back to
haunt him once more. He remembered the anguish that he felt as his sworn
blood brother died from that horrendous wound to his abdomen. He had
sworn that he would protect Pradeepan from his would be executioner,
Hariharan but had failed in that duty.

His mind drifted onto a time almost two millennia ago...

*********************************************************** ************

A roar of a river flowing along its banks can be heard in the
background. A peacock was pecking at something near the foot of a huge
banyan tree. The roots from the tree stretched to the grounds below and
swayed in the air in the gentle breeze that provided some comfort from
the heat of the unrelenting sun tropical sun. Around the tree there were
paddy fields, with each
clump of the grass bent down under the strain of the grains that they
proudly bore for all the world to see. Water trickled by in a small
canal that supplied the water to the fields. The rays of the sun
reflected back from these ripples and was glare was bright enough to
blind any observer temporarily.

The lush green clumps of rice swayed gently in the breeze, their
movement attracting everyone that passed by them. Leaves that had long
since yellowed and fallen off the tree and are now brown in colour
drifted with the breeze rustling almost inaudibly as they went along.

Presently, a faint voice became audible and it grew louder by
the second. The voice called out the same name again and again as
whoever was behind it approached the vicinity of the banyan tree.

A bloody hand appeared from behind the massive trunk of the
banyan tree and grabbed onto it for support. A pale face emerged
followed by the
blood soaked body of a man with blood matted black hair. His grip failed
and he fell to the ground. His once handsome face was contorted with
pain and had several deep lacerations on it. Blood ran from these
wounds and soaked the brown earth of the land. The man looked twenty-ish
and his face looked quite young not having yet assumed the
characteristics of a fully grown man.

\\Ranma...\\ the young man managed to croak as he clutched onto
a clump of grass before him in agony.

He lay there gasping for breath as his body began to give into
the terrible injury on his abdomen. The sound of feet rushing towards
him caused the young man to look up.

He saw the man and his face lighted up with a slight smile
before going back to its previous expression. The new arrival knelt by
his side and cradled the young man in his lap.

\\Pradeepa...\\ the new arrival whispered as he wiped the matted
black hair from Pradeepan's face.

\\Brother, I am so glad you are here now. I was afraid that I
would die all alone with no one by my side.\\ Pradeepan whispered back
without opening his eyes.

\\Don't speak like that little brother. Everything's going to be
all right.\\ soothed Ranma.

Pradeepan opened his eyes and looked into his brother's eyes.
Seeing the truth written in it, he smiled. He brought his hands to
Ranma's cheek and caressed them. \\Liar! I know I am dying brother. I
can feel my vision growing dimmer by the second.\\ he replied.

Tears flowed from Ranma's eyes and dripped onto Pradeepan's
forehead. \\Don't speak like that brother. Everything is going to be
fine and we will go to Ooty and you will marry Geetha as you had
planned.\\ sobbed Ranma.

\\Don't cry brother. If anything you must be happy for me. After
all I am going to meet both mother and father in heaven.\\ said
Pradeepan as he swiped away the tears from Ranma's cheeks.

Ranma put on a forced smile, which faltered as he looked into
Pradeepan's eyes. \\I am sorry brother...\\ he said.

\\Don't be... We both knew that it would come to this in the end
with Hariharan on our tail day and night.\\ replied Pradeepan.

\\Yes, he was... I... I should have killed him the very second
he took that oath. If I had done that you would be okay now.\\ Ranma
mentally kicked himself for not having done that when he had the chance.
Pradeepan was a scholar and had had no chance of protecting himself from
Hariharan's skilled hands. As a result of that mistake his brother now
lay dying in his lap.

\\And someone else would have taken his place big brother. What
would you have done then... Kill them too.\\

Ranma hung his head and remained silent. If he had his way, he
would have kept on killing them as they came until they stopped coming
after Pradeepan.

\\The moment the king decreed that my life was forfeit I was as
good as dead.\\ Pradeepan whispered.

Ranma remained silent.

\\Hold me big brother...\\

Ranma gently took Pradeepan's hand in his and applied pressure
to comfort him.

\\Tell her that my lost thoughts were of her. You will do that,
won't you?\\ asked Pradeepan in a pleading tone. His eyes watered and
glistened with tears.

\\I will little brother. I will...\\

Ranma never got to finish his sentence. Pradeepan's body
shuddered and his breathing became much more labored than before. His
hold on Ranma's arms tightened and his back arched once before falling
back onto the ground. His eye's glazed and Ranma felt his ki flicker and
then disappear altogether.

\\Goodbye forever, little brother.\\ said Ranma as he slid
Pradeepan's eyelids over his lifeless eyes with his fingers.

He laid Pradeepan's lifeless body softly on the ground and
looked at the heavens. A single drop of tear slid gracefully across his
cheek. It dripped down to the ground below, its surface glittering under
the sunlight in midair as it fell down.

In less than a second Ranma drifted back to reality. He wiped
the tear that had found its way onto his cheeks and addressed Ryuu.

************************************************************ ***********

Ryuu looked on with fascination as the last sailor over turned
the tables on the monster. She had used a stunning 'rope a dope' and
brought it to its knees.

Ryuu smiled to himself at that phrase. During his stay at the
amazon village a westerner had come to do some research about the
Amazon's. The elders had agreed and Ryuu had made friends with Jack
Travis. He had learnt that Jack was doing his thesis for a Ph.D. on
ancient Chinese tribal history. During his free time Ryuu had learnt
some English and boxing from his gaijin friend. He had learnt the
slang's
that came with the game and his English had become passable unlike most
of the Japanese who learned the language in the Japanese language and
thus knew not how to speak in English.

Lost in his thoughts he almost failed to notice the tear that
his sensei shed. For a moment he wondered that his sensei must have been
overcome by the inhumane cruelty of the battle but then he noticed the
far away look on Ranma's face. The look went away as suddenly as it had
arrived and Ranma wiped the tears from his eyes.

"Ryuu, drag those wounded girls to that building over there and
keep
them warm till I get to you. Whatever happens, don't attack those things
and if the sailors fight you defend yourself but don't attack them. They
are the good guys."

"What..." exclaimed Ryuu. He was surprised by the sudden
decision to intervene in the battle.

Ranma did not reply. He performed some hand motions and his body
became blurred. Ryuu was astonished that anyone could accomplish such a
thing. He had seen his father do the vanishing trick with the Umisenken
but he doubted verily whether Ranma knew that technique.

"How did you do that sensei?" he asked in absolute wonder.

"I will tell you later when this is over. Now wait until I have
those things' attention before you reveal yourself." said Ranma and
jumped with the least bit of effort onto the roof of the building by
their side. The jump was no mean feat when you considered that the
building was nearly a hundred feet tall and Ryuu's admiration of his
sensei just grew a little more.

************************************************************ ***********

The sickle pierced into his skin and drew blood. He cringed
involuntarily before his conscious mind took control once more. Mamoru
tensed his body and glared at the thing. He was not going to give it the
joy of seeing him suffer and cry. He would not be broken until the
moment of his death.

Blood dripped from the wound as the sickle went deeper into his
body. He felt it rip his diaphragm and into his chest cavity. He heard
someone shout and turned towards them. It was Ami and she was running at
her top speed towards him.

*She's trying to save me.* He realized. He tried to say don't
mind me, help Usagi but the words came out in the form of indecipherable
gurgles. His vision began to dim and he thought of Usagi one last time
before he drifted into death's cold embrace.

********************************************************* **************

Ami ran forward as fast as her legs could carry her. She saw the
sickle dig deeper into Tuxedo Kamen's flesh and realized that she could
not get to him in time. The thing that she had blinded seemed to have
gone berserk and was firing blasts everywhere.

Those very same blasts ripped up the concrete as she zigzagged
through the rubble sending pieces of concrete, metal, smoke and dust
into the air. She was about a hundred yards away when she shouted out
Tuxedo Kamen's name and told him to hang in there for just a second.

To her relief he turned towards her. The red patch on his coat
grew in size even as he turned. He opened his mouth but only blood came
out. *He is choking under his own blood.* She thought as she quickened
her pace by just that much.

Tuxedo Kamen's eyes closed and a little smile came onto his
face. Then his head fell back and he remained still.

"No!" she shouted even as she covered the last few yards between
the three of them. She reached him and spun around in her best imitation
of a martial artists kick. She had not fought alongside Makoto without
learning a few pointers here and there.

*********************************************************** ************

Surya watched with but little satisfaction as the bastard died.
The bastard had not uttered a single cry of pain and suffering in the
final moments of his life. He cursed the bastard and the God's for
providing him with such a strong will. Though he had died in the end,
the
bastard had not broken and had thus deprived him of such a simple
pleasure as the pure joy one had from seeing another suffer.

However, he had had his revenge. By punturing the bastard's
heart and those three pressure points with his ki enhanced sickle he had
shattered the bastard's heart crystal. Without it no one would be able
to bring him back to life and his soul would be lost forever in the void
as the link between heaven and the bastard had been broken when the
crystal had shattered. The demons in the void would take care of him and
his banishment to the void would be punishment enough the affront on his
mother and on himself.

Just as the bastard's ki and mana flickered out of existence,
Indra sensed the girl's attack. Acting on pure reflex honed through
thousands of years of training he grabbed the bastard's body and jumped
out of the way. He still needed to rip out the bastards heart to give to
his mother. According to tradition his mother's honor would remain
blemished until she ate the one who had wuestioned her virtues.

He dropped the body out of the girl's reach and produced his
sickles. He was about to attack her when he sensed a powerful ki
manipulator in the area. He looked up at the roof of third building to
his left and
saw...

*************************************************** ********************

As soon as Ranma got onto the roof, he relaxed his hold on his
ki just a little. He did not want to vaporize the entire ward by
relaxing all holds on his ki. He then summoned a ki blast of
considerable power and aimed it at the one eyed Ashura.

When the Ashura had quoted the verse the mental block that had
prevented him from recalling the identity of the beasts had
disappeared and he had remembered the old legends about the anti-gods.
The priest who had instructed him about the creatures had said that the
Ashura's represented everything that the God's did not. They were the
embodiment of the Yin aspect of the universe whereas the God's
represented the Yang aspect of the universe. Though some of the Ashura's
were as benevolent as the Gods, which just went showed that everything
was made of both the aspects of the force, most of them weren't and they
were to be avoided on sight.

Ranma had reasoned that since one of the Ashura was torturing
the caped guy the duo of them must belong to the later category. Having
come to that conclusion he had decided to help the senshi as anyone who
fought the Ashura's had to fight for the forces of love and justice and
all the other blah blah nonsense that the super heroes of the era
normally spouted.

With the course of action decided he had informed Ryuu of his
plans and had jumped onto the roof. Since the one-eyed one was the most
powerful he had decided to take him out as quickly as possible. The
Ashura possessed a large amount of ki and if it were to let loose all
that ki than the entire ward might be vaporized.

Ranma brought his hands together and cupped his arms and focused
his ki. The ki ball when it first came into existence was the size of a
basketball but it rapidly decreased in size even as Ranma pumped a large
amount of pure ki into it. When he was done, it had attained the size of
a ten yen coin. Energy crackled around it and it was almost blinding to
look it. The light from the ball lit up the entire area in an iridescent
glow. He aimed the ball at the one-eyed one and let it loose.

*********************************************************** ************

Surya hurled ki balls at the girl even as she ran. He did it in
the vain hope that one of them might hit her and kill her or they might
turn her attention back to him. He prayed fervently for the former for
then he would be able to kill the rest of the senshi and regain his and
his clan's honor. A small insignificant part of his mind wanted the
blasts to miss her however. Though he would not have discharged his
duties, the honor one attained from fighting to the death such a worthy
opponent was more honorable than the one got from discharging his duties
alone.
Neither did and he felt the flames of anger licking at his heart and
soul.

Surya cursed Indra as he watched the sadistic bastard jump
nimbly and evade her kick. Then Indra took out his sickles and got into
a stance. Surya cursed the sadistic bastard once more. Even if the girl
was able to defeat and kill the bastard it would take sometime and Surya
did not have a lot of it in his hands. He could not fire at her now
since his aim and depth perception were shot to hell. He could hit the
bastard and his family would be dishonored for generations to come if he
were to kill the bastard accidentally in his attempts to kill the girl.

He could kill the fallen sailors but that idea did not appeal to
him. He wanted to kill _her_ first in the field of combat and then kill
the others. Killing them while her back was turned to him seemed like
something that bastard Indra would do and therefore the idea repulsed
him. He
would never stoop to the level of that bastard. Surya hung his head in
despair. It seemed that he would have to die a honorless death after all
he had done. Just as he was giving into depression he felt a new and
very powerful ki manipulator in the area. He could sense that the new
arrival was showing as much power as he himself did at the moment though
it was clear to his experienced senses that the mortal was barely
showing the tip of the iceberg.

Surya looked into the mortal's eyes through the three hundred or
so yards that separated them. The mortal produced a concentrated ball of
ki
and aimed it at him. The energy the new comer was focusing was far more
than the girl had focused in her most powerful attack and there was no
doubt in Surya's mind about
what would happen if the ball hit him.

************************************************************* **********

Indra looked at the new arrival and gawked. Not even the most
powerful of His majesty Raja Chola's general's could produce such a ball
of ki with such impunity.

The mortal looked straight into Surya's eyes seemingly oblivious
to everything else around him. For an instant Indra wondered whether he
could attack the mortal but abandoned the idea. He then sensed the
mortal's almost undetectable probing the area. With a start Indra
realized that he was able to detect the probing only because the mortal
had allowed him to.

Indra's next thought was to run and put as much distance between
the mortal and him as he possibly could. He quickly abandoned that idea
too. If his majesty ever got wind of that he would make him suffer for
such an act of cowardice. Raja Chola ruled with an iron fist and
punishments were severe for even the smallest of offenses. There were
fates worse than death and Indra did not want to inflict them upon
himself or his family and clan.

The only option left open was to fight the mortal and hope that
death would be quick and painless. For the first time in his fifteen
millennia of existence Indra felt afraid of a mortal. He waited his turn
until the mortal focused his attention on him. It was clear from the
mortal's actions that he wanted to fight in a one on one battle with
Surya. It was also clear that the mortal would take any interruptions as
an affront and Indra did not want to think of what such a powerful being
would do when he was pissed off.

************************************************************* **********

As soon as the stranger showed himself, Ami's computer went
haywire. The amount of power that it was picking up from the stranger
was off scale. She suspected that the stranger was more powerful than
the one-eyed monster itself.

And if the way that the two monsters were acting was any
indication her assumptions were perfectly right. The blind one looked at
the stranger with utter respect and seemed to be waiting. The other one,
the one that had executed Mamoru looked like it was about to wet its
pants from fear.

She herself was awestruck. She felt no fear towards him and she
actually felt comforted in his presence. She knew from the bottom of her
heart that the man was there to save them from the monsters. She thanked
the kami for sending him to her though a part of her wished that the
help had arrived a little earlier.

With a start she shook herself out of her stupor and rushed to
Mamoru. The second monster did not even move when she rushed by it. It
seemed that it was too caught up in its own world of nightmares to care
about the rest of the world.

She lifted Mamoru's heavy body onto her back and dragged him to
the side of the road. Then she ran to get the others to safety before
the battle began.

The whole area lit up and then the stranger let loose the blast.
Ami dove for cover admist the rubble and prayed that she would live
through the experience.

****************************************************** *****************

The ball of energy zeroed in on its target. Surya crossed his
arms but did not move. It would not have any difference whatsoever even
if he did. His aura brightened involuntarily and formed a barrier around
him to ward off the blast.

Indra watched mesmerized as the ball of energy tore its way
towards Surya. He had hoped that Surya would do battle with the mortal
and buy him some time but that did not transpire. Surya just
strengthened his barrier and
waited for the blast to hit him. He realized that Surya had given up
hope and was committing suicide. With his experience Surya must have
known that the barrier was inadequate for he crossed his arms to protect
his face. There was a small chance that Surya really believed that he
could be able to repel the attack but Indra knew that was not the case.

The ball hit and for just the smallest fraction of a second
everything seemed to stand still. The stars in the evening sky glittered
peacefully and the cool eveniing air was very still. Then there was a
blinding flash
of light.

A fireball almost a hundred foot in diameter mushroomed into the
sky. Again there was silence for the smallest fraction of a second. The
silence was shattered by the deafening roar of the blast. The blast was
directed away from them and most of the destructive power of the blast
was directed away from them. Even so the heat was almost unbearable. The
immediate area around the blast in the shape of a rough spearhead was
completely destroyed. Where there had one been buildings standing proud
and tall there now stood piles of rubble with jagged pieces of metal
jutting out into the evening sky here and there.

Ami, who had prostrated herself on the ground as soon as Ranma
had fired the blast picked herself off the ground. She surveyed the
blast and looked at him with sheer wonder in her eyes. Not even Usagi
would have been able to throw such a powerful blast.

"Who are you?" asked Indra. A warrior had the right to know his
opponents name before they engaged in a battle to the death.

Ranma looked at him with the same emotionless mask he had worn
before. His mouth remained unmoving. It seemed that he did not want to
answer the question.

Indra felt his temper rising. It was a sign of disrespect when
one refused to reveal his name.

He repeated the question albeit in a louder voice.

\Naan dhan dragon!\ replied Ranma.

"Huh!" *He knows the ancient tongue. How is that possible? We
are so far away from the ancient land.* Thought Indra.

Ranma leapt off the roof and landed lightly on his feet. He
assumed a stance and addressed the Ashura again.

"Are you ready to die Ashura?" he asked in a cold emotionless
voice.

Indra did not have the time to even formulate a reply. Ranma
attacked as soon as he had uttered those words. Indra barely ducked
under the punch to his face only to get himself kneed in his face.

Indra flew back and landed roughly on the hard concrete surface
of the road. Ranma stood still eyeing him with his hands dangling limply
by his sides.

Indra wiped the blood from his face and got up. Ranma was on top
of him again as soon as he stood up. A punch to his solar plexus and a
open
handed palm strike later Indra flew once more. This time he righted
himself in midair and landed on his feet.

Deciding to take the fight to Ranma's camp he attacked. Ranma
met his assault head on. He ducked and rolled sideways to avoid the
sharp edge of the sickle. Even as it passed him, he spun around and
applied his leg to Indra's mid section and then to his face. Both the
kicks had enough power behind them to send a truck into orbit and Indra
flew and impacted violently against a building.

The building shuddered and collapsed over him. Even as the dust
rose into the air the Ashura general emerged his aura blazing like a
black inferno. His sickles had been dislodged from his hands when the
building collapsed and were now buried somewhere inside the mound of
rubble that remained of the building.

His black aura cast a shadow around him. In his six arms had
basketball sized balls of ki in them. He jumped into the air and let
loose the blasts.

Ranma jumped to meet him in midair and evaded the blasts as they
rushed towards him. Just as Indra reached the apex of his jump Ranma
intercepted him. Indra's head snapped back as Ranma executed a savage
uppercut to his chin. The Ashura general began to fly higher into the
air but Ranma had other ideas. He grabbed Indra's legs just as they
passed him and jerked him back.

Indra momentarily blacked out as the g-forces sent blood gushing
to his brain. Ranma simply swung Indra around a couple of times as he
hovered in midair. He then threw the Ashura general to the ground.

Indra hit the ground and dug a meter deep crater in it. He
moaned and reached up with his arms. He grabbed the concrete edge and
hauled himself out of the crater. He stumbled and fell down. He got up
with some effort and stood wobbling on his feet.

Ranma landed a few yards in front of Indra. The emotionless
expression did not change a little bit. He simply summoned some ki and
fired the ki charged vacuum blade at point blank range into the Ashura
general's chest.

Indra raised his ki barrier faster than he had ever before. The
blade sliced neatly through the ki barrier. It vanished out of existence
a few millimeters from Indra's body. The ki stored in it was released
and it exploded.

Indra's body just blew apart under the force of the explosion.
Pieces of flesh and gore rained down all over the area as gravity
applied its hold on them.

************************************************************ ***********

Author's rants:
It wasn't me, I swear!

Anyways it time for the customary prostration on the ground in
front of my pre-readers and all that.

Thank you guys very much. I couldn't have done it without you.
Jang
Philip Penty
Brain McCullough

Translations:

\Naan dhan dragon!\: I am the dragon!

\Yagawa raayenum nagaka kavakaal
Sogapar sollinukum pattu.\: You better keep your mouth shut or be
prepared to live with the consequences.

Hints for you readers from the author:
Hint #1: Arun does not write to a schedule, he really has to spend a lot
of time with his psychiatrist.
Hint #2: (for those outstanding critics out there[;)])Call Arun anything
you want in your mail provided (though he won't) he has the right to
call you by these same names. Arun appreciates constructive negative
comments and he really loves the positive comments. Its the 'Go to hell
you mother F***ing Freak of nature' and such that he hates. Please send
me your negative comments though I would be most greatful if you would
tone down the I hate you part a little.
Hint #3: The truth is out there, hey, don't ask me where but is out
there since Fox 'spooky' Mulder says so.
Hint #4: There is no hint #4.
Hint #5: Read the author's rants section if there is one. It would clear
some of yer questions as well as create some totally unrelated ones.