A Different Path
A Ranma / Sailor Moon crossover
Part Four
By Raye Johnsen
'Ranma 1/2' is copyright Takahashi Rumiko, Shogakukan and Viz Communications. 'Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon' is copyright Takeuchi Naoko and other interested parties. If you think I'm making any money or have any rights to any of this, you are very, very wrong.
Chapter Four: You Can't Change The Colour Of Your Destiny
Nadeshiko paused for a moment, holding the broom she was sweeping the temple courtyard with to her chest and leaning on it, gazing out into the distance. It was hard to imagine that it had been less than a week since she had come here.
Oddly, it felt as though she was in the place she was meant to be - and Nadeshiko was surprised to find that this sense of 'place' was an entirely new sensation. She'd never meditated upon her ambitions before. Before Ranma had come, she'd expected to reopen the Tendou School of Anything Goes Martial Arts, and make of it the successful venture she remembered from her childhood. After Ranma came, and she had seen how poorly-qualified she was, she had been drifting into a future that was both her greatest dream and worst nightmare.
In discarding the doujou, she had also discarded every future she'd ever seen for herself. Chiba Nadeshiko was completely unencumbered, and could do whatever she wished. It was kind of scary.
Here, in the serenity of the temple, she thought that becoming a permanent shrine maiden, as Rei-san intended, might be a nice thing to do. Am I going to always be influenced by my surroundings? she wondered, amused at herself. A self-depreciating smile touched her lips.
The small group of fans gathered under the torii at the top of the steps leading to the temple sighed. Nadeshiko-san, in the week that she had been attending Juuban High, had attracted a small but fervent group of admirers. Her manner, subdued with small flashes of fire, caught at those who were not attracted to Minako's, Makoto's or Usagi's more vivacious personalities, and who felt too intimidated by Ami's reserve. The lingering sadness in her face was intriguing and her residence, at a temple, lent her an air of mysticism.
In short, her fans were the romantics of the school.
Nadeshiko didn't know whether to try to drive them all away or to begin to date one or two of the better-looking ones. Until she made up her mind, she'd decided to simply ignore them in their group, and be polite to them when she encountered them singly. Contrary to her experiences in the past, these boys seemed content to be ignored.
Which proved yet another depressing aspect of her original hypothesis. Here in Juuban, she didn't attack the boys and they remained civilized and polite. In Furinkan, she had responded with hostility and violence to the first attack and the cycle had escalated. Even with Kunou's encouragement, she clearly was at least partly responsible for the whole mess.
How long does it take for someone to grow up? she thought savagely, standing up straight again and attacking the dirt, twigs and leaves that the wind had blown onto the neat paving stones of the courtyard.
"One of them annoy you?" Yuuichirou-san had come up behind her. He began to sweep beside her, nodding towards her fan club as he asked the question.
"No," Nadeshiko replied, shaking her head. "I'm just... annoyed at myself."
"Ah," Yuuichirou said, and the two of them finished sweeping in silence, neither feeling the need to speak. Nadeshiko relaxed as she performed her half of the chore. She'd never needed to speak with Ranma, either; each time they had managed to make peace with each other, they had not spoken, and it was not for lack of things to say. It was just that there was no need to talk - and a little fear, too, that they would shatter their fragile peace.
She looked up at Yuuichirou through her eyelashes. He was cute, and understanding, and he was trying to learn. If only Ranma had been more like Yuuichirou. She sighed. Rei didn't know what she had in the palm of her hand.
Haruna-sensei had taken a transfer to Juuban High School because the pay was better. She was actually a little startled to find herself assigned to a classroom containing three very familiar faces. She would have been most surprised if anyone had suggested it might be for another reason.
Setsuna had been very pleased with herself for an entire week after she had arranged that little detail. She didn't see why Haruka, Michiru and Hotaru had objected to her harmless gloating. It was just nice to arrange things so people stayed in contact with old friends; and this little piece of arranging was positive for all concerned. It did not warrant an ambush with supersoakers.
The retaliatory strike with waterbombs had, however, been most satisfying, and she had gotten photographic evidence. Haruka didn't look good at all as a drowned rat, and her fans in the racing world would have been delighted to find that out.
Haruna-sensei been pleasantly surprised by Chiba Nadeshiko's academic transcript, and even more pleased by the fact that, although she seemed to have quickly become a friend of Tsukino Usagi, she did not pick up that young lady's habitual tardiness or her indifference to homework. In fact, she seemed more inclined to urge Tsukino-san into study. Not, however, that Chiba-san seemed to have any more luck than Mizuno-san or Kino-san had throughout the past three years.
The new student was settling in nicely.
That afternoon, Nadeshiko was walking home alone.
Makoto-san had cooking club ("You don't need it!" Nadeshiko had said, to which Makoto had replied, "Cooking is fun, and I can always learn something new!") while Ami-san had juku, and Minako and Usagi were spending an extra half-hour re-doing their kanji test. Nadeshiko had passed, but was very well aware that it was because she was studying with the Senshi that she had.
Climbing the steps that led to the temple, she was surprised to see a small trail leading off into the wooded area that bordered the steps. It probably leads to the Senshi Training Ground they said they've got set up behind the temple, she thought, and then, I wonder what it's like? Without any other conscious thought, she stepped off the stone steps and walked up the tiny path.
She did not look behind her, and so didn't see it vanish as her feet left it behind.
She walked along the tiny path for far longer than she should have, but somehow the thought of turning back, or of checking her watch, just didn't enter her head. The landscape was pale, almost pastel, as if it were a classic watercolour rather than solid earth and growing trees.
It didn't seem that long before she came to the cave. The entrance was dark and small, barely big enough to admit her. Nadeshiko walked in fearlessly. The darkness was old and sad, the result of a mistake made too long ago and not yet set right.
She did not even think why she thought that.
The passageway was short, and opened out onto the most magnificent grotto Nadeshiko had ever seen. Limestone chandeliers adorned with giant crystals of precious gemstones adorned the ceiling, and painted panels edged with precious metals, crystals and gems made up the walls of the chamber.
One panel was of a beautiful woman, with hair painted with leaf-of-gold and eyes of silver. She stood not on the earth, but on a cloud, and birds, painted so well they seemed about to fly away, perched upon her hands.
The next was a woman of flame. Her hair was red and so, oddly, were her eyes. Her skin was a strange, bronzed-red colour Nadeshiko had never seen before, and she carried herself with the bearing of an Empress. She stood in the centre of a lake of lava, deep within a volcano's caldera. Flames danced on her fingertips.
The next picture was obviously meant to represent an undersea landscape, as kelp almost seemed to wave in a current as it grew, tall undersea bushes. Multicoloured fish wove like living jewels among the fronds and the pale, pale hair of the woman in the picture, her deep, almost navy-blue eyes as ancient as the ocean she was almost a part of.
The next woman's picture was startling. Her dark skin was the colour of rich earth, her ivory teeth flashing forever in a laughing smile. Her dark hair, tied in many tiny braids, fell so far down her back that the beaded ends of her plaits rested on the ground she sat on. She was sitting on a plowed field, her booted feet resting in the furrows, while in the distance, men plowed the fields beyond her. Worms and insects scurried at her feet, while those animals that ate insects stood a respectful distance from her.
An obviously Chinese woman's portrait was next in the circle. Her golden skin made a startling contrast to her black hair and eyes, while her midnight-blue robes blended with the star-studded night skyscape behind her.
As Nadeshiko turned to the next painting, she couldn't help feeling there was some significance here - something she was missing. The next image was of a woman sitting in a cave with seams of copper, gold, silver and iron running through it. She herself seemed made of metals - her hair was new-minted copper, her eyes were gleaming gold and her skin was warm bronze.
A ghost seemed to be within the next picture, until Nadeshiko realized it was simply a woman with no colour about her at all, her hair platinum blonde and her eyes pale, pale blue, with skin almost the colour of snow. The diaphanous white robes didn't help much either.
The next and last image was of a woman standing regally within a gem-studded grotto, and Nadeshiko frowned as she realized it was the same as the one she stood in. This woman had long, wavy, blood-coloured hair and cinnamon eyes. She wore gaudy jewellery, a double-layered collar set with sapphires and turquoise, with two huge droplets of turquoise falling from her ears down the length of her neck. She, alone of all the women in the portraits, wore a headpiece; an inverted boomerang of polished black obsidian surmounted by yet another chunk of turquoise. Her dress was tight and very daringly cut, with thorns as accessories.
Looking at this woman, Nadeshiko felt a shiver of commingled fear and sympathy. Her eyes were hard but behind the hardness lay a terrible vulnerability. This woman had been badly wounded, if not shattered, and to ensure her own safety, had built a wall between herself and the world, and in the building had done some terrible, fear-worthy things. Like me, Nadeshiko thought.
No. Not like you.
The thought rested unbidden in her mind.
"Who said that?"
The one whose place this is.
Nadeshiko sensed a feeling of frustrated incompletion about the answer. The speaker needed to say things for which there were no words.
"If you can hear my thoughts," Nadeshiko said slowly, "you could've made it so I did not find this place."
Truth.
"So why am I here?"
To take your place.
"Huh?"
She didn't get a chance to say any more as the wind whirled up around her. The grotto's blank back wall collapsed away, and vines and other flowering plants began to creep visibly over the tumbled rocks. An image seemed to paint itself onto the ninth and final blank panel on the wall - a Japanese girl dressed in green in a sylvan glade, grasses blooming at her feet, trees bursting with blossom behind her, holding a bouquet of nadeshiko, and with Nadeshiko's face. On the wall to her right, Nadeshiko saw a ripple of fire that seemed to leave something in its wake. She turned her head and saw, written on the wall:
Zephyr of Air
Quetl of Fire
Amarina of Water
Vadi of Earth
Chiuyen of the Void
Golda of Metal
Aure of the Spirit
Beryl of CrystalAnd the fire died on the wall, to leave behind it: "Nadeshiko of Wood".
Then something felt as if it were breaking open within her, and Nadeshiko fell to her hands and knees. The world spun about her, and then....
And then, she was half-sitting, half-lying on the steps of the hill, that led up to the Cherry Hill Temple. She glanced at her watch - it was fifteen minutes later than she would have been if she'd walked straight home from school. Just long enough for someone to sit down and take a short nap.
What happened? she thought. Did I fall asleep? Here? I guess... what a weird dream. And then she started to climb the steps again.
She didn't notice then that a wreath of nadeshiko was looped about her right wrist, and when Rei pointed it out to her later, she decided she must have done it while walking up the hill, thus inspiring the dream.
Setsuna stood in the shadows under the trees, watching as the Acceptance Ceremony was completed. Events were moving faster than she had anticipated. She frowned as she turned and walked away.
Author's Notes:
1. The career ambitions of Aino Minako and Hino Rei differ between the anime and the manga. In both, Minako's ambition is to become an idol, but in the anime, she indicates that she is as amenable to becoming a sporting idol as an entertainment idol, an area focus that isn't present in the manga. In the manga, Rei has absolutely no interest in going into show business, and her ambition is to become the head priestess of her shrine and keep it alive. In the anime, her ambition is to become an entertainment idol and then a happy wife - both goals that she dismisses in the manga.
2. Torii are the stylized gates, usually painted red, that stand over the entrances to Shinto and Buddhist Temple grounds, and other sacred areas.
3. In Japanese schools, it is relatively common for students to create fanclubs for popular or attractive students in the school (similar to fan clubs for pop bands and actors in the West). While students in the West also admire other students in their schools, they do not organise themselves nearly as thoroughly as their Japanese counterparts do, and there is no real Western equivalent.