Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Sailor Moon Fan Fiction / Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ Reflections of Ruin ❯ The Deconstruction of Akane Tendo ( Chapter 12 )

Reflections of Ruin

by P.H. Wise

A Ranma/Sailor Moon/Cthulhu Mythos Crossover Fukufic

 

Chapter 12 - The Deconstruction of Akane Tendo

 

Disclaimer: I don't own Ranma. I don't own Sailor Moon. Please don't sue me. I'm not doing this for profit.

 

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She wouldn't look. She wouldn't look. She wouldn't look. It was all a lie. She wouldn't look. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing would change that. Nothing. She knew who she was: she was Akane Tendo, and Nothing would change that. Nine. Nine. Mistress Nine. Akane. Nine. Akane. The darkness of the room seeped into her heart, and everything she saw was coloured with rage.

 

Clutching at her head, Akane screamed. It was not the first time she had done so, nor would it be the last: her voice was hoarse, her vocal chords ragged. Sweat had long since plastered her hair to her forehead, and pain nearly overwhelmed her senses. She could still feel the psychic probe crawling in her thoughts, searching, seeking, something. Seeking something. Something.

 

Seeking Mistress 9.

 

That name. It called to her, however much she tried to deny it. Sometimes, she felt as if she could almost reach out and touch the memory of it, but every time she did, something - her humanity, maybe - pulled her back from the brink.

 

She wouldn't look. Wouldn't see. Wouldn't see how she hovered over the body of a small girl. Wouldn't see how she stared as a spectral form floated over her.

 

The dam burst.

 

A woman. Momma? Momma, is that you? “Momma?” she asked aloud.

 

The spectral form rushed into her body. The woman screamed something. Something angry. Something indistinct. “...away from my daughter...!”

 

There was pain. Horrible, agonizing pain. She needed to lash out. To strike back at something. Anything. Anyone. Ranma?

 

No. Not Ranma.

 

Her anger went forth from her body in a wave of sheer malevolence; the woman collapsed instantly. A moment later, Akane felt the ground rushing up to meet her, and a bizarre sense of duality that slowly faded into a single sense of self... and then darkness.

 

Light.

 

A light was being shined in her eyes. A flashlight? Maybe. It was hard to tell. “...Akane Tendo...” she insisted in a hoarse, croaked whisper. She knew it was a lie, but she said it anyways. She was Akane. She would always be Akane.

 

The terrible, writhing presence in her mind vanished, and for a moment, she knew peace.

 

-----------------

 

“Well?” the Professor asked as Eudial stepped out of the holding cell.

 

The observation room was a cold, sterile place, filled with monitors and esoteric equipment. The Professor sat in front of the one way glass, looking in at the prisoner who had even now sunk back into sleep. In front of him sat a steaming mug of hot tea.

 

Eudial removed the strange, cold metal band she had worn around her head and placed it on the table in front of the Professor. “She's there. Her fingerprints are all over the girl's mind.” She looked briefly uncomfortable. “Next time, you use the scanner.”

 

The Professor grinned, and pretended not to have heard the latter comment. “I knew it. But why hasn't she come forth? Why is the girl still in control?”

 

Eudial shook her head. “I don't know.” She plugged the metal band into one of the monitors. A strange, convoluted display of grids and numbers flowed across the screen. “But maybe some computer-assisted analysis of the data I recorded will tell us something.”

 

The Professor picked up the mug and took a long sip of his tea. “Maybe,” he said, and looked up at the display.

 

A moment later, he frowned.

 

That was when the one-way mirror exploded inwards, pelting Eudial and the Professor both with shards of sparkling glass. The Professor's eyes shot wide open, and even as he gazed upon the figure beyond, his grin began to widen to inhuman proportions.

 

There, standing in the holding cell, the chair smashed to kindling around her, was a beautiful woman with long, long dark hair that spilled down like a cloak behind her, and cold, angry eyes. She was clad in a long, shimmering black dress that hugged her figure in pleasing ways, and waves of sheer malevolent power radiated out from her. On her forehead was a black star - the symbol of the Death Busters.

 

“That won't be necessary, Eudial-kun” The Professor said, and rose to his feet.” He bowed deeply. “Welcome back, Mistress 9.”

 

But the woman only glared hatefully at him. “I'LL KILL YOU!” she shrieked, and her hair began to move, growing wildly, strands writhing like snakes as they flowed through the shattered glass barrier and quickly seized both the Professor and Eudial by their throats in a vice-like grip.

 

“But... you're our ally...!” the Professor choked out.

 

“You keep saying that,” the woman said. “But you made one fatal mistake, Germatoid: you separated me from Ranma. So... DIE!” The long ropes of her hair constricted tightly, squeezing harder, harder, harder, until the Professor's vision began to go black, and then...

 

The pressure vanished.

 

Coughing, the Professor fell to his knees and stared into the holding cell. There, lying unconscious on the floor, was Akane Tendo. Her hair was down to her ankles now, but it was unmistakably her; and on her forehead, the sigil of the Death Busters was writ for all to see.

 

The Professor and Eudial exchanged shocked looks. “This...” The Professor began, “This could be more complicated than I had thought.

 

------------------

 

Ranma was a strange sort of sleeper. She was situationally (and sometimes simultaneously) both a light and heavy sleeper. She could sleep through a hurricane, but a little water to the face brought her into wakefulness almost instantly. In this case, there was neither water to the face nor a hurricane to wake her. There was, however, what was perhaps the only other influence that could encourage her to leave the land of slumber behind her: the smell of food. Someone was cooking, and it smelled good.

 

The red-head's nose twitched twice. She sniffed the air. Damn. Not just good food, but okonomiyaki. Her eyes fluttered open and she sat up.

 

Instantly, the world rushed into focus. All the sights, scents, sounds, and feelings swirled around her awareness for a split second before her mind dropped them into understandable categories. She was in a sleeping bag on top of a futon that was laid out on the wooden floor of Rei's living room. Various other sleeping bags, all of them empty, were rolled up in the corner, their respective futons missing, likely put back into the closet. It was still a bit chilly, but the warmth of the sunlight was beginning to filter through. There was a very slight breeze, and, of course, the smell of okonomiyaki filled the room.

 

Ranma sat there in her sleeping bag for a moment, feeling the breeze on her face. Then something else clicked in her brain: Okonomiyaki meant Ucchan.

 

She was on her feet almost instantly, out the sliding door, down the hallway, and into the kitchen. The sudden change from one area to the other might have been shocking to someone who wasn't from Nerima. The area of the shrine where Rei made her home was very modern; she owned a computer, there was a television, and all sorts of other electronic gadgets scattered about, though all nonfunctional now that the power was out. Here, it might as well have still been a setting straight out of ancient Japan. Well, except for the very modern Japanese girls gathered around the table in various ensembles, ranging from a set of blue denim bib-and-brace dungarees with a yellow t-shirt underneath (Minako) to a school seifuku (Ami). There, serving the food was...

 

“Ucchan?” Ranma asked hopefully.

 

Makoto looked up, confused. “Uh, no.”

 

“Ranma, you're up!” Usagi chirped cheerfully.

 

Ranma looked downcast. “Oh.”

 

“Help yourself, though,” Makoto said. “I made enough Okonomiyaki for everyone.”

 

That brightened Ranma's mood considerably. She sat down and immediately dug in. “Thanks, Makoto!” she said between mouthfuls.

 

Makoto beamed.

 

Rei looked up as they all finished eating. “Ranma-san, there's a furo down the hall, but...” she and Ami exchanged glances.

 

Ranma got the distinct impression that they had spoken of this before she'd woken up.

 

“You don't have any other clothes, do you?” Ami asked. It wasn't so much a question as a statement.

 

Ranma's heart sank at that. She hadn't even thought about anything like that, but now that she did, the thought came rushing over her with a suddenness that was almost shocking: Her house was totally destroyed - she'd discovered that in her wanderings the previous day. Were her parents alive? ... She figured it'd take more than an ice-tywhatsit to take down her old man, but her mom... well, she just didn't know. “I...” she trailed off. “I don't know,” she said, and there was the tiniest hint of panic in her voice. “The house is gone, but... but I should go check on my folks...”

 

The sad looks that the other girls gave her only made her heart sink even lower.

 

“Ranma-chan,” Usagi began. When Ranma didn't object to the suffix, she continued. “We're going out today to...” she swallowed heavily, “... to check the shelters and see if our families are ok. You can come with us.”

 

Ranma nodded numbly.

 

“Since you don't have anything to wear besides what you're wearing,” Rei said, “You can borrow some of ours.” She looked at Ranma closely, considering her build. “Normally, either Minako-chan or Mako-chan are your best bet, but since they're in the same situation as you, I think you're going to have to borrow some of mine.”

 

“I...” Ranma sighed, and nodded. “Arigatou, Rei-san.” She stood up. “I think I'm gonna go take a bath now.”

 

Rei nodded. “I'll have something laid out for you when you get out. Do you have any preference?”

 

“Nothin' too girly,” Ranma said over her shoulder as she rose to her feet. “I ain't into all that frilly cra...” She changed what she was about to say. “I don't like, uh, frilly stuff.”

 

Rei got an odd look on her face, like she knew that Ranma had almost said something insulting, but said nothing about it. “Nothing frilly,” she said, sounding faintly amused. “Got it.”

 

Ranma went out. It wasn't too hard to find the furo, though it did take a little poking around. In one room, Rei's grandfather was still sleeping on a futon in the corner. In another, Mamoru was writing in his diary - Ranma left him undisturbed. When she finally found the furo, she put up the occupied sign and stripped off her now quite dirty Chinese clothing - a short-sleeved light blue silk shirt with black pants.

 

Naked, for the first time in days, she dumped a bucket of cold water over herself. The cold jolted whatever sleepiness remained straight out of her system. “Brrr!” she said, gathered up the necessary supplies, and began the task of getting herself clean. She finished with another bucket of cold water dumped over her head, and then slipped into the furo.

 

The water was blessedly warm, and as she sank into it, she almost fancied - almost - that she could feel that familiar tingle that had come with regaining her male body, once upon a time.

 

She looked down at herself.

 

No such luck.

 

Ranma sighed.

 

----------------

 

Akane sighed.

 

It had probably been too much to hope that she'd find Ranma there to rescue her when she awoke, but at the very least, she had hoped not to be still tied to a chair. Although... this didn't look like the same chair she had been in earlier.

 

She felt tired. Not sleepy, but exhausted. All of her limbs ached, and her hair...? How had that happened? Her hair was long enough that it must be down to her ankles! She struggled for a moment and got a look at it. Yep. There it was. Longer than it had ever been.

 

After a moment, she grit her teeth and berated herself for thinking about something so trivial when she should be trying to figure out a way to escape. Ranma wasn't coming. He had no idea where she was.

 

There was something else. Something in the corner of her mind - a kind of weight. She shied away from it instinctively and began tugging at her bonds.

 

No luck. The bonds held fast.

 

She looked down. She was on top of that sigil again. Whatever it was. Somehow, she knew that if only it weren't there, she wouldn't feel so exhausted and weak. If it weren't there... her hair began to writhe.

 

Immediately, she screamed, and her hair stopped moving instantly.

 

Akane blinked. “What on Earth...?”

 

Experimentally, she tried to will a section of hair to move.

 

It did. A shudder went through her scalp, and the hair moved.

 

A thrill of excitement went through her, and she grinned. “Kidnap me, will they? I'll show them not to mess with a martial artist.” She willed it, and her hair moved, its tips hardening to supernatural strength and scraping violently across the Elder Sign.

 

The Elder Sign flared violently, and weakness and pain mixed together nearly overcame her.

 

Gritting her teeth, Akane tried again. Again. Again, and again. Each time, the sigil flared brighter, and each time, Akane came a little bit closer to blacking out in the wake of her attempt. And then, finally, the magic of the Sign failed: it crumbled into ash; there was a burst of Eldritch power, and she was free. Free!

 

She rose to her feet in triumph. She HAD shown them! She could take care of herself! She was Akane Tendo, and she could take care of herself! She was...

 

Memories roared out from that isolated corner of her mind, surging across her awareness like tidal wave, burying her all at once, and she knew. She KNEW.

 

Akane knew who she had always been.

 

*FLASH*

The laboratory was burning. It was all burning. Flame and heat and smoke filled the air, and nothing human would survive it for long. The experiment had failed. Professor Tomoe's revolutionary attempt at drawing energy from subspace had drawn her forth, and now she searched desperately through the ruins of the burning laboratory for her intended host. Nearby, Tomoe Soichi lay dying.

 

“Damnit, where is she!?” Akane hissed. Disembodied, she was a vast, dark, vaguely female humanoid shape, and the shadows writhed around her, but she was fading; her spectral form grew fainter and fainter by the moment. She needed a host. Every precious moment she went without an appropriate host was a diminishment of her power. Enraged, she scooped up the Professor by his throat, heedless of his dying state. “Where is your daughter, Doctor?” she demanded. “Where is my vessel?”

 

The damnable man smiled faintly, as if he didn't even realize that she held him by his throat. “I always wanted a daughter...” he coughed violently - a great, wracking wet cough. When he had finished, there was blood on his lips.

 

Akane dropped him disgustedly. She couldn't understand it. What had gone wrong? The stars were in line. This was the night she had to take possession of her host, or lose everything. Hotaru Tomoe - the reborn Soldier of Ruin - had been born to this man's wife. Her divinations had shown this to be true. They had also shown her that the one who would be the Messiah of Silence was in mortal danger this night, and every spell she'd cast had led her to believe it would be here, now. Leaning down over the man, she intoned in a grave voice, “Where is Hotaru Tomoe?”

 

Soichi looked up at her, and he seemed surprised. “Hotaru-chan?” he asked hopefully.

 

Disgust rose up in Akane. “Your daughter, Doctor Tomoe. Where is she?”

 

The light in Soichi's eyes faded slightly. “Hotaru,” he whispered desperately. “Tomoe Hotaru. That was what we were going to name her. If she hadn't been...” tears began to shine in his eyes. “If she hadn't been... stillborn... six years ago now.” Even as his life bled out from the horrible gashes across his body, he began to cry.

 

Akane snarled and whirled away from the broken man. Germatoid could see what use he could make of this one, but it seemed that if she herself was to survive the night, she would need to find another host. Another host... While no host would be nearly so ideal as Hotaru Tomoe would have been, she was no longer in a position to be picky. In great wrath, she departed the burning lab.

 

She would have to be quick. Any female would do, provided she was young enough that she would be unable to effectively fight off her influence, even in this weakened state. She cast about for a mind appropriate to her needs. Something she could use. Something...

 

There. She would do.

 

She felt a bizarre sense of duality, then, as if seeing the same event from two different perspectives. She was the girl. She was the spirit. She watched herself descend upon herself. There, at her side, Kasumi shrank back, sensing something was wrong. Nabiki screamed, and their mother...

 

It hurt. Everything hurt. Agonizing pain. Her mother strode forward, her battle aura manifesting visibly around her. “GET AWAY FROM MY DAUGHTER!” she yelled, fierce determination burning in her eyes as she projected a rudimentary ki-attack at the possessing spirit.

 

Kasumi and Nabiki were screaming.

 

Momma was hurting her. Momma was hurting her! She needed to lash out. To strike back... somehow. Her anger went forth from her body in a wave of sheer malevolence

 

Momma fell to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut; Akane felt simultaneously horrified and exultant. She screamed/rejoiced. She had found a host.

 

But something was wrong. Something... she had waited too long. She had waited too long! She was too weak to continue as an independent entity within the mind of this human girl, but maybe... With any luck, the gestalt mind would retain enough of Mistress 9 to carry out her mission. It wasn't ideal, but it was better than death.

For one of her kind, anything was better than death.

 

Kasumi and Nabiki were still screaming, their shrill cries echoing far into the night. Momma wasn't moving.

 

Akane poured herself out into herself. Mistress 9 joined with Akane, and in that moment, two became one. She felt the ground rushing up to meet her, and the bizarre sense of duality slowly faded into a single sense of self... and then darkness.

 

*FLASH*

 

She had done it. SHE HAD DONE IT. Momma was dead because of HER. Sure, she had eventually woken up, but... but the wasting sickness had started then and there. Because of her.

 

Akane vomited noisily onto the floor of the cell. And then, overcome by self-loathing, she sank to her knees, and wept.

 

----------------

 

Ranma opened her eyes and sat up. She must have dozed off. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She shook her head looked around. OK. There was a clock on the wall. She'd only been out about five minutes. That wasn't so bad. She rose to her feet, water dripping from her nude form, and stepped out of the bath. Even as she stepped out, she half expected the door to open, and for Akane to walk in, like she had so long ago... but no.

 

Akane was gone.

 

Ranma would get her back. It helped that Usagi had promised to help. It was hard to explain. She seemed like a silly girl, and certainly not one to take seriously, but when Usagi made such a promise, you really couldn't help but believe her.

 

Filled with a new sense of purpose, Ranma grabbed a towel and began drying her hair.

 

In the dressing room, Ranma was pleasantly surprised to find a very non-frilly selection of clothing there waiting for her: a grayish blouse, a pair of dark slacks, and a red collared jacket with zippers across either breast. She put it on and found that it fit reasonably well. It wasn't a perfect fit, but it worked. The sleeves were a little long, as were the pant legs, but that was easily fixed.

 

She left her hair loose and walked back to Rei's living room.

 

The girls, relocated there now, all looked up as Ranma entered.

 

Rei nodded approvingly. “Not bad,” she said.

 

“Feeling better?” Usagi asked, smiling.

 

Ranma nodded, blushing slightly from all the attention. “Uh, Yeah. Anyways, we going?”

 

Each of the other girls nodded an affirmative.

 

“I'm sure our families are all ok,” Usagi said, rising to her feet. “Let's go find them!” She strode purposefully out of the room; the inner Senshi followed, and Ranma followed.

 

---------------

 

The walk to the first shelter was done mostly in silence, with Ranma trailing slightly behind the other girls. Soon enough, however, they reached the Crown Game Center; the windows were gone now, destroyed in the storm, the now useless (and many badly damaged) game machines had all been pushed against the far wall, and the room was full of dirty, tired people. The entrance to the official shelter itself lay open in the back of the arcade: a steel door opened to a stairwell that led to the government shelter beneath the Crown Game Center where the people here had survived the storm. An old woman rested against the wall, her aged husband sitting at her side, with their grandchildren at play all around them. A young woman, her belly visibly swollen in the later stages of pregnancy, stood alone, blinking confusedly. A tired middle-aged woman in a doctor's uniform - one of the only people present who actually looked reasonably clean - was giving a little boy a shot in his right arm.

 

“Hello mother,” Ami said as the girls walked into the game center.

 

Doctor Mizuno looked up momentarily. “Ami,” she said in acknowledgement.

 

Ranma glanced at the older woman. So this was Ami's mother, huh? She could tell. Though Ami's hair was tinged blue and her mother's wasn't, Mizuno-sensei looked very much like a grown up version of her daughter. Well, almost. There were other differences: Mizuno-sensei was more obviously Japanese, while Ami was... Ranma wasn't sure. Actually, now that she thought about it, Ami looked at least half Mercurian. She blinked. Mercurian? Where had that...? Oh. Right.

 

Damn dream memories.

 

“Mother,” Ami began stiffly, “Do you have a list of the families at this shelter?” The other girls looked worried by the interaction between Ami and her mother, but Ranma didn't give it any mind.

 

Mizuno-sensei nodded, gesturing to the thick sign-in binder on a nearby table. “If you intend to stay,” she said, “Be sure to sign in so we know you're here.” She examined the boy's arm who she had just given the shot to. “That wasn't so bad, was it?” she asked warmly.

 

“No, lady,” the boy said, staring wonderingly at the spot where the needle had gone in. “It didn't hurt at all!”

 

Mizuno-sensei smiled. “Off you go, then!”

 

Ami walked to the table, scrubbed at her eyes angrily, and opened the folder.

 

The girls exchanged glances. “Mizuno-sensei,” Rei said, barely managing to keep the scolding edge out of her voice, though it didn't change what she said, “You shouldn't be so cold to her.”

 

Mizuno-sensei looked up and fiercely, angrily met Rei's gaze.

 

Rei didn't look away.

 

After a few moments, the woman's expression softened, and she looked troubled for a moment. “Hino-san, I have a job to do,” she said. “Minato-ku is a disaster zone. These people need my help, and I'm the only doctor at this shelter... if I let myself get distracted from that...” her voice wavered, and for a moment, there seemed to be tears forming in her eyes. The moment passed, and her expression hardened again; she wiped away the half-formed tears and became the cool professional woman again. “I'm sorry, Hino-san, but I have a lot of work to do.”

 

Rei looked away, and Mizuno-sensei moved off to her next patient.

 

“Minna,” Ami called out. The others glanced her way. “It doesn't look like they're here. We'll have to try the other ones.” And without so much as a glance back, Ami walked out.

 

The other girls watched her for a moment, exchanged worried glances, and followed.

 

Off they went, and while the next shelter was very much like the first, full of weary, dirty people, some sick, some healthy, some injured. There were two doctors here, one of whom was a volunteer from the International Red Cross who had arrived just an hour before the girls did. But none of their families were present, and they did not stay.

 

At the third shelter - this one the closest to the Saotome home - they had more luck. This one was set up in a subway station, and even as they stepped into the underground, a woman's voice cried out, “USAGI!”

 

There, only now rising to their feet at the bench about twenty feet away, was Ikuko, Kenji, and Shingo Tsukino.

 

Even as Usagi ran to her family, crying out their names happily, a woman's voice called out, “Ranma?”

 

The red-head turned, and for a moment, did not recognize her own mother, bedraggled as she was. Then she saw Genma sitting next to the woman, and everything fell into place. “Mom?” she asked faintly.

 

“Ranma!” Nodoka was on her feet, ran, and threw her arms around her child.

 

Ranma felt her heart leap, first in recognizing her mother, and then again in the hug. She was crying. Her mother was crying. The embrace became a blur of tears and happiness, and Nodoka said, over and over, “My son, my son.”

 

Minako and Ami exchanged shocked looks at that, but Rei was too busy watching Usagi's own family reunion to notice.

 

And Genma? Genma remained where he was, sitting on the bench, smiling proudly. “I knew it would take more than a storm to slow you down, boy,” he said.

 

Ranma grinned widely as her mother led her back to the bench where her father sat. “Right back at `cha, oyaji,” she said. “When I saw the house, I figured mom might have trouble, but you were way too stubborn to die like that.”

 

Genma laughed. “Indeed, boy. Indeed. But as for the house, well, we didn't buy that insurance against acts of God for nothing!”

 

Ranma stared at Genma incredulously, and when Nodoka nodded a confirming nod, she laughed out loud.

 

Ranma and Usagi had found their families. Theirs was the joy of the morning; of spring after a long, harsh winter; of the bedridden invalid who awakes suddenly to find himself well, and the day unexpectedly full of promise once more.

 

Makoto and Rei went over to talk with Usagi's family, and Ami and Minako watched, standing apart from their joyful friends, smiling sadly, and wondered if they would ever find such a reunion.

 

-----------------

 

At last, her tears ran their course. Akane still felt like crying, but she quite simply had no more tears: she had used them all up. When her tear ducts had time to make more, she'd cry again, but now... now she had to get out of here. She knew what she was now, but she'd be damned before she'd let some monster like Pharaoh 90 hurt her Ranma.

 

A wave of self-loathing rose up, threatening to overwhelm her. She had killed her own mother! She was the reason her family had been broken! Why would Ranma want anything to do with a monster like her? She almost sank back down to her knees... But no. She grit her teeth and tried to focus. She needed to be angry. If she were angry, she could stave off this feeling long enough, she hoped, to find Ranma, and at least to warn him and the other Senshi of what was to come.

 

Anger had always come easily to Akane Tendo, and now that she knew exactly who and what she was, it came easier still. Rage burned within her, and soon, a deadly red aura manifested itself visibly around her.

 

She turned her attention to the cell's reinforced door.

 

The Daimon guarding the cell had no chance to call for help: the door exploded outwards with a shriek of tearing metal, flew right off its hinges, and slammed the creature into the wall of the corridor, killing it instantly.

 

Glowing red, her hair writhing like a hundred serpents, Akane Tendo strode purposefully out of her cell. Alarms were sounding, but she didn't care. Nothing would stop her now.

 

A door at the far end of the corridor hissed open, and man and a woman stepped through. The woman - Eudial - hefted an esoteric looking weapon.

 

“Mistress 9,” Eudial announced. “This is the Fire Buster MK III, for which I am applying for a patent. If you don't return to your cell...”

 

Akane sent forth a wave of sheer rage made manifest, and it poured down the corridor like fire; Eudial pulled the trigger.

 

A blast of magically-enhanced napalm met Akane's attack, and for a moment, their two powers clashed violently. Heat roiled across the hallway, visibly distorting the air as black lightning crackled out from the point at which the attacks had collided. The lights overhead exploded in violent showers of glass.

 

“You won't stop me, you bitch!” Akane shrieked, her fury doubling in upon itself, feeding her power. Long, thick ropes of her hair surged forward, growing with supernatural speed; Eudial fired again, and the smell of burned hair filled the hallway, but it wasn't enough. For every long rope of hair that the fire buster burned, three more surged forward. A lance of supernaturally-empowered hair wrapped itself around the weapon, wrenched it from Eudial's grip, and flung it out a nearby window.

 

“NO!” Eudial screamed, reaching for it to no avail.

 

Professor Tomoe stepped forward. “That's enough,” he said, no longer grinning, but glaring at Mistress 9. He produced a tome from under his arm: Kitab al Azif, and as she looked upon it, Akane knew that if she didn't act immediately, she would never escape.

“You know how to stop me? Fine. I know how to stop you, too, Germatoid.” She raised her hand, and the black star of the Death Busters appeared on her palm. “DIE!” A pulse of black, crackling energy flew out from her hand, writhing like a mad thing as it flew across the intervening space.

 

The Professor raised his own hand and began to chant; a semi-translucent barrier snapped into being around him. Akane's attack crashed into it, and for a moment, their power clashed visibly, spectacularly; the walls cratered as cosmic forces did battle.

 

Akane proved the stronger.

 

There was a flash, and a roar as of thunder as the barrier collapsed. Akane's attack washed over him, and Professor Tomoe dropped bonelessly to the ground even as Germatoid was expelled violently from his body and smashed into the door that he and Eudial had emerged from.

 

Akane strode forward, triumphant, knowing that there was nothing these two could do to stop her. Eudial charged her, shrieking in outrage, but Akane simply batted her aside as she might a fly or a gnat.

 

Eudial struck the wall and slid slowly down it, blood trailing down the wall from the back of her head. She stared blankly.

 

“I'm leaving,” Akane said, “Stay out of my way.”

 

“Do you really think you think you can stand against your Father, Mistress 9?” Germatoid asked weakly.

 

“My father is Soun Tendo,” she snapped, and strode away from the fallen monster.

 

And she might have gotten away, but in that moment, Pharaoh 90 intervened. She and he were connected, and he, sensing her rebellion, poured his will down through their link in a horrific, brutal psychic assault.

 

Akane screamed as the power of Pharaoh 90 flooded into her mind. She crouched down, hands on her head as she tried to hold on to something. Anything. Ranma. She loved Ranma. She could hold on to that, couldn't she? Anything to resist this... this assault. But Mistress 9 had not been made to resist her father. Her resistance was like a handful of pebbles dropped before a flood, and she was lost. Her eyes flared a deep, undying red as she rose to her feet. In that moment of contact, her eyes fell upon Eudial: Pharaoh 90's great eye fell upon Eudial.

 

The Scientist's mind broke instantly, shattering into a thousand pieces. Eudial screamed. She screamed, and screamed, and all trace of sanity left her.

 

Nearby, Soichi curled up into a ball on the floor and wept, repeating, again and again, “Hotaru-chan, Hotaru-chan... we would have named her... Hotaru-chan, where did you go?”

 

Germatoid rose to its feet and grinned. “Mistress 9,” it intoned, and bowed deeply.

 

Mistress 9 nodded her head. She glanced at Soichi. “You appear to need a new vessel, Germatoid. How lucky for you that there is one readily available.” She gestured at Eudial, who still stared at Mistress 9 with wide, terrified eyes.

 

Germatoid needed no further urging. It flowed into Eudial, and the red-headed woman's eyes gained a mad kind of focus. She rose to her feet, grinning widely. “The will of Master Pharaoh 90 cannot be stopped!” she said, and began to laugh madly.

 

The glow fades from Mistress 9's eyes, and their colour had changed: they were purple. “You can laugh later, Germatoid,” she snapped, glaring at the other woman. “Come. We prepare for the Master's arrival.”

 

They left the ruined hallway behind them, and Soichi's weeping soon faded into Silence.

 

END CHAPTER 12