Kibou No Hikari by Kokushoku Karasu Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 belongs to Takahashi Rumiko. No infringement intended. Sailor Moon belongs to Takeuchi Naoko. No infringement intended. Chapter Two: Vacation's End. "..." : Japanese <...> : Thought [...] : Written text Created: 10/04/2001 Rewrite: 04/28/2003 Updated: 02/04/2005 ---------- "Are you sure you're feeling well enough to go to school?" Nodoka asked her sometimes daughter, with more than a little concern in her voice. "I'll be fine." Ranma replied, as she headed upstairs. "Besides, I can't stand bein' cooped up in here any longer." After she entered her room, she changed her clothes. She exclaimed in her mind. ----- Later: "Are you sure you're up to this?" Akane asked, with what sounded like concern in her voice. Ranma said to herself. "Yeah, anythin's better than Oyaji's 'training'." The redhead said aloud. It had been almost a week since Ranma was injured, although she couldn't remember how she came to have those injuries, other than she had fought a demon of some kind, but she couldn't remember what happened after she had been sent flying into that wall. Akane asked herself, as she stared straight ahead, paying little attention to Ranma, and as such, she didn't notice that the redhead also had something on her mind. As both girls had something on their minds, the rest of the way to school was spent in silence. ----- In a fairly secluded part of the home of the outer senshi was a room. In that room was one Meiou Setsuna, aka Sailor Pluto, who at that moment still didn't know where she had left her timestaff. Or for that matter, even when. She figured that she didn't leave it in the past or the future, but the world suddenly seemed so much larger now that she couldn't teleport, or even access the time gates. One morning she had transformed and teleported to the time gates, only to realize that she was still in her room. Later, she learned that both Sailor Saturn's Glaive and Usagi's Ginzuishou were also missing. And they still haven't found any of them. "Setsuna." A voice that sounded familiar, yet unfamiliar said in greeting. It was a style she had used on herself countless times through the centuries, whenever she would talk to her past self. Although it was actually a feature of the Timestaff to prevent a senshi of Pluto from knowing that they were to retire or die soon. It was always disconcerting. Including the effect that shadowed the features of the person using it. But Setsuna had been guarding the time gates for a long time, well until that time.... In the time she had been guarding the gates, she had learned things that none of her predecessors had ever learned. "What tidings from beyond the flow do you bring?" Setsuna asked, as was the tradition from long before her great-great grandmother took the post of Sailor Pluto. "It is time for the senshi to go where chaos reigns, and the art of war is practiced every day, and yet none die." The shadowed figure said. "And where is that?" Setsuna asked, breaking protocol for such discussions. "It is near, yet not near." The shadowed figure replied. "Who are you?" Setsuna demanded, now far outside what was proper for such conversations. "You will know me, you used to know me, and yet you don't know me." The figure replied. Then she waved the timestaff, and vanished. Two things burned themselves into Setsuna's memory. One, whoever that was, it wasn't her. Two, the uniform had red, in the place of Pluto's green. Setsuna asked herself. Setsuna took her communicator out of her subspace pocket, and started calling all the senshi. She had forgotten that all of them had classes at this time of day. ----- Later that day, outside Fuurinkan: "Ranma, why are you still here?" Akane asked the redhead, who had just exited the school building. "They made me retake the test." Ranma grumbled. "Um, which test?" Akane asked. "All of them." "All?" "All." "Why? Did you fail them?" Ranma glared. And showed Akane her test results, the ones the teachers had insisted couldn't be right. Akane's eyes bugged out. "How'd you cheat?" She asked. Glaring continued. "I didn't cheat!" Ranma exclaimed. "Just cuz' I have time ta study before a test everyone assumes I musta cheated, but I didn't!" "Anou, Saotome-kun?" One of the teachers tried to get the attention of the very much annoyed redheaded girl. "YES!?" Ranma said a little too forcefully. The teacher cringed. "Um, your new test results have been computed, here!" Then he ran off as if all the hounds and demons in hell were after him. No faster. The demons would be more gentle than Saotome in the mood she was currently in. Nevermind whatever the results might say. Ranma unfolded the results and looked at them. Akane looked over the redhead's shoulder. Akane walked off, she felt numb. Ranma, meanwhile, decided to go for a walk. She needed one. ----- "...and that's what she said." Setsuna finished. "Ami, do you know where she was talking about?" Ami thought for a moment. Then another. Then another. Then she checked her computer, but it didn't have any data. "The art of war?" Makoto asked. "Could that mean Martial Arts?" Setsuna thought for a moment. As did Ami. "It could." Ami and Setsuna answered in stereo. Makoto then produced a magazine from seemingly nowhere, it was a Martial Arts magazine. "This woman, Tanaka Naoko, writes a magazine called 'Eye on Nerima', which is about the goings on in Nerima. It talks about all these weird Martial Arts challenges, and strange techniques." she explained. ----- Something was bothering her. Normally she wouldn't be bothered by someone claiming that she cheated on a test. Not that she ever had, but now, she was really bothered that the teachers thought that she had cheated. She also wondered how she had known everything on the tests. She knew that she had studied a little, being mostly stuck in bed for a week was enough to get her to study, but as she thought about it, she would normally have just grumbled about being stuck in bed, or did nothing, why did she study at all? <....> ----- "What's wrong?" Masami asked the tomboy who still looked like she had just received the shock of her life. "Did Ranma just declare that he's in love with Kunou?" The cat paused. "Or Ryouga?" The cat paused again. "Both?" Akane numbly sat in her chair. The lack of response, more than anything raised Masami's curiosity. "How bad can it be?" The cat asked, not knowing if this was a good question to ask, or not. "I feel like I don't know him anymore." Akane said, her voice sounded like it had lost all hope for the future. "What do you mean?" Masami asked, not sure how to proceed on this subject. "He's not acting like himself anymore!" Akane exclaimed, then promptly became depressed again. "Not acting like himself?" Masami asked. "What do you mean?" ----- Somewhere: A vortex appeared briefly, and deposited a figure. The figure was shadowed for a moment, before it was illuminated. It was a redheaded girl in a sailor fuku, apparently holding the timestaff. Another figure stepped foreward from another position, and nodded to the first. "There, I delivered your message. Anything else?" The redheaded senshi asked. "Yes, I need you to take this to my past self." The other woman, who had green hair said. The redheaded girl looked at the instructions on the envelope. "That's just yesterday." The redhead observed. "Why can't you take it?" "Because it was you who gave it to me, thus you have to give it to me." The green haired senshi answered. "You don't need to mask yourself this time." The senshi of time added. ----- Nekohanten: Cologne heard the telephone ring, she was in the kitchen and ordered Mousse to answer it. "Elder, it's for you!" Mousse exclaimed. Cologne blinked, not so much because the call was for her, but because Mousse had actually spoken respectfully. With some trepidation, she picked up the receiver. "Hello?" Cologne asked. "Cologne, you shouldn't have had that low male answer the phone." The voice on the other end admonished. "But seeing as how you couldn't have known we were about to call, you will be forgiven, this time." "May I inquire what's going on?" Cologne asked, worried that they'd decided that Ranma was too much a risk. "We're calling about two things, one's minor, in fact we weren't going to call for another two weeks about it, the other, though, isn't." Cologne gulped. "And it is?" She asked. "The One has been reborn." "You don't mean...?" "Yes, the queen has finally been reborn." The other elder replied. "Do you know where?" "Not precisely, it seems that the artifact has weakened over the centuries, we do know her to be in Japan, so we're sending a search team over." "And the other thing?" Cologne asked. "Shampoo has one month to kill her wayward husband. Should she fail, we will have to take matters into our own hands." The elder said. "The search team will arrive tomorrow." The elder hung up. Cologne sat down. It was almost unheard of, but Ranma had just done something that had only been done twice before in Amazon history. He had defied Amazon law for too long. Cologne thought to herself. Which was when Shampoo chose to announce her return, said Amazon was completely unaware of the conversation that had so recently ended. ----- "Great, now we check this place again." Rei grumbled. "It's possible the crystal was moved since we last checked." The blue-haired genius absently observed. ----- Elsewhere: Ranma sneezed. Then she sneezed again. Then a third time. The redhead wondered to herself. She hoped not, with a big math test soon and all. She asked herself. She shook her head to clear it. ----- "Well...." Masami began. "Maybe Ranma's starting to take school seriously." The cat doubted her own statement, what she knew about the boy/girl contradicted that. "What if more happened than what we know about?" Akane asked. "What if that demon messed with Ranma's mind?" Masami paused to consider this. "...It's possible, but what would making Ranma get good grades accomplish?" Akane just shook her head and got up, Masami wasn't helping much. ----- "What great-grandmother mean 'Shampoo must kill Ranma'?" A rather confused Shampoo asked. Cologne sighed, not out of frustration at Shampoo's Japanese, but because she would rather not have had to be the bearer of bad news. "I received word from the council today that he has exceeded the time limit, which means that you now have to kill him, lest he make us weaker by showing other outsiders that we can be beaten." The words were like lava in her throat, words that she never wanted to say. "The council has taken into account his fighting prowess, so, instead of the usual week, you have been granted one month." There were times in Cologne's life when she thought the council was a pack of raving lunatics, this was one of them. Shampoo left the room, to say Shampoo was shocked was an understatement akin to saying that Ranma was a little scared of cats. After Shampoo left the room, Cologne's earlier thought echoed through her mind. She realized that unless she wanted The One to be trained to be just like the council, she had to find her first. Cologne asked herself. ----- A certain blind to reality kendoist was raving. This, in and of itself wasn't all that unusual. Except for once he wasn't raving about a certain pigtailed martial artist who had just used his foul magics to bar him from his one true love, whichever one that may be for these five seconds, but he was raving about... contacts? "Where did my demented sister hide my contacts this time?" Indeed, Kunou DOES wear contacts. Maybe this explains something, nope, not really, but it does explain why he wasn't staring at his poster-sized images of his 'twin loves', because Kunou, in addition to being blind to reality, is myopic enough to be unable to see the large posters without corrective lenses. Oh the agony. Which goes on to explain WHY Kunou has been leaving Ranma alone for the last few days, after confusing Sasuke, Kodachi, a lamppost, Midorigame, three different trees, and a car for Saotome, Kunou decided to stay in his room, lest he acquire the reputation of being a raving lunatic. Well, actually it was the time he confused Mikado for the pigtailed girl that caused him to stay in his room. ----- "Has the portal been completed yet?" A shadowed figure inquired. "It has, my liege." Crimson Star replied. "It points to a peaceful ward of Toukyou called Nerima." He added. "Then send a youma through to gather the energy needed for our purpose." The figure in shadow instructed. "Understood, my liege." ----- To say Shampoo was despondant would be like saying that Mousse's eyesight was a little bad. She stared at the sword again. It was the same sword she had used many times while trying to kill Ranma's female form. Now she would have to kill Ranma, because the law said so. It wasn't fair. But to disobey the law was to deny who she was. What she was. She was an Amazon. She would make her village proud of her. But to do so, she would have to kill the man she loved. She reminded herself that honour came before love. ----- He felt it, a barrier in his mind was crumbling. He didn't know why, he only knew it was. He had an idea of what was blocked by the barrier, but only a vague one. He only knew that it was since he saw her. He knew he had to find his princess, but he didn't know how to find her, why he had to, or for that matter, who said princess was. That part was most frustrating to the black cat in question. So he did what came naturally, he wandered around in search of his princess. ----- Ranma entered a park, since she had to think, she figured this was as good a place as any, so she sat down on a bench, and promptly became lost in thought. The dreams had become much more frequent and vivid over the last few days. It was almost as if what she saw in them really happened. But those dreams were of the life of a little girl, not his life. But she couldn't ignore how real they seemed. She wondered what the message was, what it meant, and most importantly, why her. She was torn from her thoughts when she heard a scream nearby. It was a strangely familiar scream. Not the voice, but the style of it. One that she had only heard in one place. Her dreams. The reason for said scream came into sight. It was vaguely humanoid, had oddly purple skin, and the creepiest aura Ranma had ever felt. ----- He felt a strong evil aura, coming from the nearby park. Well, maybe he'd find what he sought that way, or at least help someone. With that in mind, the black cat took off for said park. ----- Meanwhile, at the Tendou Doujou: "Another monster?!?" Akane demanded. "Yes, it's at the park." The cat replied. "Transform!" ----- Meanwhile, back at the park: Ranma stared at the monster in mixed shock, surprise, and something else that she couldn't quite put her finger on. But she knew she didn't like the monster that was before her. But she didn't know what to do, which was a situation the redhead wasn't used to. Usually when someone dangerous showed up, she'd know how to fight them. Or at least have a hunch, but for some reason she was paralyzed by something in the back of her mind. A voice in the back of her mind practicly screamed. The monster grabbed a man by his throat and seemed to just suck the life-force right out of him. Ranma wondered to herself. The monster dropped the man, and started to head her way. She started to back away. The monster quickened it's pace toward her. Something inside her snapped, like a rubber-band that had been pulled too far. She realized what she had to do. What she must do. What it was her duty to do. She had to defeat this monster, and protect the people from the Dark Kingdom. She was, Sailor Sol! The henshin rod appeared in her hand, as the sigil burned brighter than it had even those few days ago. "SOL STAR POWER, MAKE UP!" The light engulfed her. This was who she is. This was who she mustn't be. This was her curse, her blessing. Her duty, her chore, her destiny, her choice. But most of all, this was her life. The light faded, leaving a redhead wearing a Sailor Fuku. The basic design pattern was like that of Mercury's, or Moon's, but the colour pattern was more like Mars'. She was Sailor Sol. She was also in a pose that made her eye momentarily twitch. "Parks are for relaxation and fun, to disturb that is a thing of evil, I'm Sailor Sol and in the name of the celestial body of the minute, I will punish you!" Sol paused. "I can't believe I just made a speech." "Sailor Senshi?" The youma inquired. "Your death will please my master greatly. HA!" That said, the monster launched an attack at the redheaded senshi of the sun. Unfortunetly for said youma, this Senshi had a great level of experience in dodging attacks, and had spent the last year in Nerima. That being said, the monster's attack missed the redhead completely. "Eat this, PLASMA SHOCK!" The youma, not being very experienced at dodging, nor having any knowledge of this senshi's attacks was completely caught by surprise when the superheated plasma exploded in it's face. The youma screamed in pain. Not surprising since a third of it's skin was charred. And it appeared to have second and third degree burns over much of it's front. "It's over." Sailor Sol informed the youma. A small sphere of light formed in her hands. "HELIOS" The light took on a bright yellow hue, which oddly resembled the sun. "SPHERE!" Small flares appear around the sphere, which is then launched foreward. As the attack closed in on the youma, small sunspots became visable on the small star. When said attack struck the monster, it exploded with the force of a small nova. The youma, unable to take the kind of stress that attack caused, exploded into dust. "Princess!" A voice exclaimed. The redhead turned, and.... Came face to face with her greatest fear. A cat. She screamed and ran. ----- Some distance away, the redhead calmed down. A little. Another thought percolated through her subconscious, into her conscious thought. Her eyes took on a faraway look. The redhead blinked. She asked herself. "I see you're memories aren't fully awake yet, Sailor Sol." The same voice from earlier said. "You don't have to be afraid, I'm Asahi." Somehow, Sol felt a little relaxed, but at the same time she was frightened. There was a talking cat nearby. "I'm going to come out now, please don't be afraid." The mooncat slowly stepped out from behind the bush. Somehow, Sol knew that cat didn't mean her any harm, and in fact, intended to help her. How she didn't know, but she knew nonetheless. "I'm going to use an ancient technique that will take away your fear of cats, Princess." He added in the most reassuring voice he could muster. The cat sat down in front of her, and stared at her. After a moment, a beam of light came from his crescent moon, and struck her forehead. ----- Masami wondered who had defeated the monster she had felt, but she had no idea. The cat shrugged, she'd figure it out in good time. Her crescent moon flared, and she floated up into the air. Then she began to glow, after a moment she began to grow, and change shape, her tail vanished, as did most of her hair, her hind legs changed to human legs, and her front legs changed to human arms. When she became human sized her hair seemed to explode out from her head. Then a dress appeared around her person and her transformation was complete. Masami stood in her human form for a moment before banishing her crescent moon symbol. ----- Elsewhere, Sailor Sol finally remembered her entire past. The fun times. The sad times. Endless fights. Love. Hate. Friends. Allies. Enemies. Everything. Desire for a normal life. "Asahi, why?" Sol asked. "The fights seem to involve you again, so I didn't have much choice. Besides, I didn't want to retrain you." The black cat explained. "And you would have gone crazy otherwise." The redhead glared at the cat, then her expression softened. "Thank you." Asahi blinked. "Huh? That's the LAST thing I expected to hear from you." "You gave me freedom from my fear." "Oh." ----- "You failed." "My apologies, milady. There was unexpected resistance." Crimson Star replied. "Well correct that." "Yes, my liege." ----- Ranma stared at the ceiling. She now remembered her prior life. Or rather lives. First there was her life back in the Silver Millennium. Then there was her life in Juuban. She idly wondered what happened to her friends, Ami, Rei, Minako, Makoto, Chibi-Usa, Usagi, Haruka, Michiru, Hotaru, Setsuna, and Mamoru. The exertion of the day caught up with Ranma then, and she fell asleep. ----- Akane still couldn't get used to the speed at which Ranma healed. Sure, she healed faster than normal, but even she would take weeks to get over a broken bone. Let alone broken ribs, but the redhead seemed to be breathing much easier. Ranma was, and she knew why. Her already high healing rate, enhanced by her senshi transformation's healing enhancement gave her a near instantaneous healing factor. Thus, although she had only been in senshi form for a few minutes, that brief time was all her healing abilities needed to heal most of her injuries, and the night was enough time finish the job. Ranma felt her danger sense fly into overdrive. A danger she hadn't felt in almost a year. The redhead jumped out of the way just in time to see a sword pass through where she had been. The sword was wielded by one Shampoo, who seemed only mildly shocked, and perhaps pleased to see that she had failed to strike the redhead. Little of which mattered to Ranma, she was being attacked, by someone who she thought of as a friend. "Once husband, I kill!" Shampoo exclaimed, and made another lunge at the redhead. Who dodged -- straight up, and Shampoo's sword embedded itself in a mailbox. The amazon tried to pull the sword free from said mailbox, but was unable to do so. Shampoo released the sword, and took a fighting stance and prepared to attack Ranma head on. The amazon deadpanned in her mind. She attacked the redhead again, her attack sailed over Ranma's head, as said redhead ducked and tripped Shampoo. Akane, meanwhile was at a loss of what to do. She hadn't seen Shampoo act that way since Ranma drove the amazon away that one time. Why Shampoo was acting like that Akane didn't know, if she were with Masami she could ask the cat. The thoughts of all three were derailed when Toufuu-sensei hit Shampoo's sleep point. "What's going on here?" Cologne hopped down from a nearby roof. "What the hell's goin' on old ghoul?" Ranma asked with her usual diplomacy, which is to say, none. "I'd hoped it wouldn't come to this, but it seems that the council in their 'infinite wisdom' has decided since you won't join your wife as a good male should that you must die. By Shampoo's hands." "I take it from your tone you don't like their decision?" Toufuu inquired, although it seemed like a statement. "Most astute of you, doctor." Cologne replied. "However, all those around Ranma must be very careful, Shampoo still fights honourably, but the council won't hesitate to kill anyone who gets in their way when the time limit expires, myself included." With that said, the ancient amazon picked up the young purple haired one, and carried said amazon off. ----- The cat considered what Akane had told her. "I don't know, it could be possession, or it could just be those laws of theirs once again." Masami replied. ----- Meanwhile, at Narita Airport a group of women completed disembarking from a plane flight from China. "Is everything in order?" The apparent leader of the group asked. "Yes, Elder." One of the younger, meaning somewhere in their twenties, women replied. "Stupid males gave us some problems, but they are taken care of." "Good, the sooner we find Her, the sooner we can protect Her from corruption." Left unsaid was that the person the elder was talking about would be corrupted, not by some extra-dimensional enemy, or by some evil dictator, but by the culture of Japan as a whole, particularly the male portion of said society. "Let's begin with the neo-natal wards of the local hospitals, we meet at the Nekohanten in one week." Another elder instructed. "Dismissed." ----- Cologne thought as she checked another one. Her duty as one of the Guardians of the Treasure, there were nearly three hundred in all, herself included. All Elders, plus select warriors, held the position, they're first duty was to find their Queen, they were the back-up plan in case the detection spell didn't work, or didn't work right. As it was, she had stopped checking infants this morning, and was now on kindergarteners. She had limited her search area to the Nerima ward, due to a gut feeling she had. ----- "RANMA, PREPARE TO DIE!!" Said martial artist rolled her eyes. "What's it about this time, P-chan?" "How dare you...." Ryouga trailed off, as his face contorted from great concentration. Then he slammed his fist into his hand. "How dare you not give me a good reason to fight you!!!" That had Ranma nonplussed for a second. Which was almost enough time for Ryouga to hit her, were it not for two reasons, one, the redhead's dodge reflex being perhaps one of her strongest, and two, she was faster in girl form, which translated to the transpig's attack missing it's intended target, and hitting a telephone pole. "C'mon, fight FAIR!" Ryouga bellowed. "FAIR?!?" Ranma demanded. "Since when is dodging not fighting fair?" The lost boy paused, which was a good thing. As right where Ryouga would have been, a rather vicious sword was planted in the ground. And the redhead wasn't anywhere to be seen. "Escaped again?" Shampoo asked. ----- Ranma had once again escaped from Shampoo, she still didn't want to hurt said amazon, which was why the redhead was not fighting the amazon much. She was about to take to the rooftops again, when she spotted a group of young women. They looked a little older sure, but she could still recognize them. Also, the behavior of one was almost a dead giveaway, that and her unique hairstyle. But she wasn't the one that she first spotted in the group, it was the one with blue hair she saw first. "Ami-oneechan!" ----- Ami paused in her third futile attempt to coax Usagi that, no, she didn't need to try this ice cream shop, when she heard someone call her name. "Ami-oneechan!" There was only one person who called her that, but she hadn't seen her in ages. "Ranma-" Ami was interrupted mid greeting, by a strong hug from a young redheaded girl. The blue haired genius managed, with some effort, to break the young redhead's grip, although she knew that it would have been impossible had Ranma been trying. "It's been, four years now?" She asked, although it wasn't so much a question, as a statement. ----- "What's eating you Akane?" Yuka asked. "I thought Ranma's cast was going to come off today." "It's not that." "So what is it?" "...." "You can tell me!" "...remember the test results yesterday?" "How could I forget, the WHOLE school was talking about it, Ranma went from the bottom of his class to the top of the entire school." ----- Makoto was in a state that could be best described as shock, here was a girl perhaps four years younger than herself, and she and Ami were talking. That in and of itself wasn't the shocking part. No, she was talking in a way similar to how Ami talked. The waiter came over, obviously nervous for some strange reason, which, Makoto learned when everyone ordered. After Ranma's and Usagi's orders, the waiter left crying. "Why's he crying?" Rei asked. "Because, it's eighty percent off Thursday." Ranma answered. ----- Akane saw the waiter look like he had seen true hell, which usually meant one thing, Ranma had just ordered. Yuka also spotted the waiter. Both girls scanned the crowd to try to find Ranma, but it was Yuka that spotted said Martial Artist first. "He's over there!" Yuka exclaimed excitedly. Akane followed Yuka's finger, and saw Ranma. And some girls with him. The tomboy was about to storm over and pound the redhead, when Yuka tapped her shoulder. "Why don't we spy on them?" She suggested. It worked, which caused Yuka to breathe a sigh of relief. This was after all, her favorite ice cream shop too. And Akane was allready on notice not to start any fights here. ----- Akane listened in on the conversation as best she could, which wasn't easy, since the redhead and the girl, Ami apparently, seemed to enjoy talking about very technical subjects, which in turn, the tomboy didn't even begin to understand most of. "I think they're very boring too." The blonde with odd ponytails said to Akane. Which caused the tomboy in question to jump from shock. Which was all that was needed for the redhead to notice the tomboy. "Akane, this is Ami, she was my tutor in Elementary School." Ranma said to Akane. "Ami-oneechan, this is my fiancee, Akane." "Fiancee?" Rei's face contorted in confusion. "'oneechan'?" Akane repeated. "This may take some time to explain." The redhead said. ----- Six hours later: Akane sat down at her desk. Ranma had a friend that she hadn't known about. Then the tomboy recalled that never once did Ami indicate that Ranma was a man. Luckily, Masami just came in the window. "Oh-oh." The brown cat said as she caught sight of Akane. After Akane had told her everything that had happened, the cat paused to think. "So Ranma's really a girl that fell in hotspring of drowned man, and is trying to cover it up." Masami concluded. The brown cat added in her mind. "Or, he's trying to cover up a relationship with that girl." "It's possible, but doesn't he remember when he was cursed? And didn't the girl act like Ranma was, well, a girl?" "Then maybe he's pretending to be a girl to get close to her!" Masami facefaulted. ---------- End Chapter Two Author's notes: Yay, no writers' block. Too bad it's 4:00am. E-mail : awk@tentacle.net Website : www.tentacle.net/~awk ICQ : 307211678 AIM : kokushokukarasu 05/10/2003 76 lines 02/15/2004 221 lines 03/19/2004 324 lines 09/20/2004 364 lines 02/04/2005 917 lines