The characters in this story belong to their respective creators and rights
holders. Ranma 1/2 is the creation of Rumiko Takahashi. Sailor Moon is the
creation of Naoko Takeuchi. All original content is the creation of Samuel
Phoenix. Recognition is given to John Sanchez for a small kick of
inspiration that helped produce this story, and to Harold Ancell who has
been a near constant source of input, information, and ideas.
Awkward Consequences
Chapter 11: A Mother's Love
PsyckoSama (syp104@psu.edu)
With a tired groan, the 'evil intruder' stood up and looked the Senshi of
the moon dead in the eyes. With a loud crack, he twisted his neck to get the
kinks out then settled into a relaxed stance. The perturbed scowl on his
face all but said, 'You've got to be fucking kidding me', and with a tired
sigh, he remarked, "Great, another one..."
The pretty sailor-suited champion of love and justice blinked in surprise.
"Another one?"
The boy in the Chinese shirt sighed and whipped out a cigarette. Lighting it
with a spark of ki, he took a long drag. Looking at Sailor Moon, he replied,
"Yeah, another one. What is it with you sailor chicks and stickin' your
heads in other people business?"
Sailor Moon scowled and began to quake in anger. How dare he! How dare
this... monster lecture her about butting in?! He was in her house
threatening her mother! Her grasp on her scepter tightened and her teeth
clenched at his nerve. "It's our duty to protect the innocent from monsters
like you!" she exclaimed with great vehemence.
He looked over to Ikuko and in a tired tone, he asked, "Do you need
protecting?"
Usagi was surprised when her mother shook her head. "Not at all,
Ranma-kun... and don't smoke in my house!"
Ranma chucked in embarrassment and flash incinerated the cigarette. "Gomen!"
Usagi blinked. "Ranma-kun?"
The boy "I'm Saotome Ranma of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts. If
ya wanna fight me, let's take this outside."
Usagi paused as she mentally added all the factors. The father of Hotaru's
baby was named Saotome Ranma. Minako said that she saw him walking into a
love hotel with Hotaru. Hotaru had described Ranma was a wonderful person
and claimed that he was a powerful martial artist, but why then would he be
threatening her mother, and why for that matter would her mother be acting
like nothing was wrong? Oh, why did thinking have to hurt so much!
As Usagi stood inactive trying process the conflicting input and come to a
conclusion, Minako decided to step up to the plate. With a growl she said,
"I saw you walk into that Love Hotel with Hotaru-chan, you evil seducer of
innocent young women! Your crimes will not go unpunished! As the Senshi of
Love, I will PUNISH YOU."
Ranma blinked then he scowled. "Hey! You're Minako, ain't ya?"
Both senshi gagged in unison.
"What would give you that kind of silly idea?" asked Venus, as she began to
perspire. "Never heard the name."
Ranma growled. "Haruka-san was there when me an Hotaru were done. She said
some chick named Minako saw us and ratted us out."
"Hehe..."
Usagi turned her head to the source of the dull chuckle. It was her mother.
The woman had stood up and was intently looking over Sailor Venus and
herself. There was a very intense, and slightly cracked gleam in her eyes.
The way she held her head only enunciated by shadowing them. She had a very
bad feeling about this.
"I see..." Ikuko sighed, and regained her composure. In an unnaturally calm
voice she said, "Ranma-kun, don't worry yourself. I'll handle this."
Usagi gulped, hard, and shuddered as an ice cold shiver made its way up her
spine. She knew that tone, and she knew it well. Nothing good had ever come
of it, at least not for her.
Ikuko walked up to Sailor Moon and looked the odangoed senshi in the eyes.
For a second she relaxed totally, closed he eyes, and took a very deep
breath. It was not to last.
"U-SA-GI!" Ikuko screamed in rage, her lungs somehow providing enough force
to rattled the very foundations of the house.
Sailor Moon shrunk back at her mother's outburst.
In one swift motion the woman grabbed her magic girl daughter by the ear,
forcing her to bend at a very unnatural angle. Screaming loudly, but without
the banshee like force she had used before, she exclaimed" TSUKINO USAGI,
WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING!?"
All Usagi managed to do was cry out in pain from her ears. If it wasn't pain
from the close proximity sonic blast, then it was the fact that they were
all but being torn from her skull by a exceptionally pissed off mother.
Not seeing a coherent reaction from her daughter, and not particularly
caring regardless, Tsukino Ikuko began her mad maternal rant. "You have a
lot of explaining to do, young lady! Not only do I find out that you've been
running around fighting monsters, and demons, and god only knows what else
in the middle of the night, putting your life in danger, when you really
should have been sleeping and doing your school work, but you do so without
telling you own mother, keeping her worried out of her mind for you for over
four years! On top of that, WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING, busting into
this house and threatening a guest, acting like some kinda of underdressed
juvenile delinquent!? Has being Sailor Moon warped your mind, am I a failure
as a mother, or are you just that overwhelmingly STUPID!?" Ikuko trailed off
momentarily, panting for air.
Minako chuckled dully at the... insane display before her and glanced over
to Ranma. In an angry whisper, she hissed, "Great job, asshole."
"You're next, young lady," stated Ikuko between breaths, in the same
frighteningly calm voice she used with Usagi right before she exploded.
Ranma couldn't help but snicker as Minako went bone-white.
Having fully caught her breath, Ikuko continued. "Minako's one of those
underdressed vigilantes too I see, and from the sound of it so is poor
Hotaru-chan! What about your other friends, huh? Ami, Makoto, Rei? What
exactly are you girls? You dress like some perverts wet dream ruining around
in those silly in those silly Lolita-Con schoolgirl outfits all day long,
are you just devil hunters or are you something more extreme; like some kind
of sick religious cult bent on world domination or something? Are you
recruiting? What other poor girls have you drawn into your madness, how
about poor, innocent Chibi-Usa? It looks like you conned poor Hotaru in,
what about her? Where does the madness end Usagi?! Answer me, damn it...
ANSWER ME!"
Usagi stood in place, stupefied by the mental overload.
"U-sa-gi..." snarled Ikuko in annoyance at her daughter's lack of a
response.
"Please let go..." Usagi managed to mutter, her mind still stuck somewhere
in a cloud of pain, confusion, and pure dread.
Ikuko scowled and released her daughter. "You have some explaining to do."
Sailor Moon sighed and banished her costume. In a flash of multicolored
energy and ribbons, she was standing in her street clothes. No use hiding
it, the cat was out of the bag, and she was doomed. "Hai, Mama..."
With the kind of stride usually reserved for death row inmates walking the
green mile, Usagi walked over to the table and sat down, seemingly defeated.
Ikuko sat down across from her daughter glaring at her with a level,
interrogator's gaze. "Get started, Usagi."
Usagi sighed and consigned herself to fate. "Were should I begin?"
"How about 'the beginning', but first, why did you attack our guest?"
---------
"Ikuko-mama?" All eyes turned to the stairs, and to Chibi-Usa who was
looking into the room, clearly confused by the chaos. "What's going on?"
"Oh, nothing dear!" replied Ikuko in a jovial tone. "Usagi just got home."
Ikuko's voice suddenly turned towards the dark side. "We're having a little
chat."
Chibi-Usa blinked in surprise and walked down the steps to get a better
look. Mentally she categorized the situational elements. She did NOT like
what she saw.
First, there was Usagi sitting at the table looking like she was about to be
executed in some horrible, horrible way. Then there was Ikuko-mama sitting
across from Usagi wearing that same psychotically unhinged look that the
Neo-queen had used on her last time she'd snuck off with the Time Key to
visit Hotaru-chan. Then, there was Ranma and Minako, no, correction, SAILOR
VENUS, standing off to the side looking like a couple of idiots.
So, that's where she got it.
NOT GOOD, NOT GOOD! She didn't know what was going on but she damn well
wanted to find out before this blew up in HER face!
Chibi-Usa heard a squeak on the steps above her and look over. It seemed as
if Hotaru wanted to know what was going on as well.
Chibi-Usa paused for a moment, and blinked in surprise. Were Hotaru's eyes
*supposed* to be glowing?
---------
Tomoe Hotaru was not having the best of weeks. In fact, in the last three to
four days her mood had gone up and down more often then a pair of kangaroos
in the mating season. She didn't know if was her pregnancy hormones starting
to kick in or the kind of crap that happened for the sole reason of making
people's live that much more difficult, but it was really starting to get on
her nerves.
She was unsure of everything. She knew that deep down the apparent happiness
she had since meeting Ranma was for the most part, a facade, a pitiful
attempt to trick herself into believing that everything was going to end up
just hunky-dory. That was bullshit and she knew it. She was going to be a
teen mother which would make her even more ostracized by the public, she was
engaged to wed a man who, no matter how sweet he was, she barely knew, and
the kind of emotional betrayal she'd suffered of the past few days at the
hands of her family deep left scars.
Earlier in the day Hotaru and her "beloved" had decided to do some soul
searching followed by the kinds of wild and wacky adult activities that
couples like to do in love hotels. What really made this "memorable" was the
presence of her father figure at the door, a little bit of fun made possible
by one "Aino Minako", a girl who was standing less than five meters from
Hotaru.
"Excuse me, Chibi-Usa," murmured Hotaru, in a sugar-sweet tone.
Chibi-Usa quickly did so, letting Hotaru pass.
Hotaru walked into the room, paying little attention to those around her.
The object of her current displeasure was right in front of her, and the
opportunity to express it was apparent.
"Ranma?" she asked in the same frighteningly sweet tone, "I take it
Ikuko-obasan has figured out the details?"
"Ah, yeah," replied Ranma.
Hotaru nodded in affirmation and began walking toward Minako. In a flash of
dark energy her sailor fuku appeared. There were no ribbons, no fancy
transformation scene. Just BAM, one moment Hotaru, the next Sailor Saturn.
It was not her regular uniform, the one she wore as Sailor 'Super' Saturn.
It was the original, more severe and ominous one she'd worn during the final
battle with Pharaoh 90.
"Hotaru?"
With a thunderclap, Hotaru punched Minako in the face. The Blond Senshi flew
backwards against the wall and bounced off, leaving a Venus shaped
indentation.
As Minako bounced forward, Sailor Saturn reached forward, and grabbed Minako
under her breastplate, lifting the older Senshi off of the ground. She
looked the other girl in the eyes with a glare that threatened great
suffering if she was not satisfied with her answers.
"Minako, you and I have to talk about 'limits'," stated Hotaru in a
ironically congenial but cold tone.
"What?" Minako squeaked, quite intimidated by her precarious position. It
wasn't every day Hotaru shifted into full fledged Sailor Saturn mode and
physically intimidated someone after decking them.
"Limits and respect for the privacy of others, Minako. Let's go over what
happened, shall we? You saw Ranma and I enter a love hotel earlier today and
apparently considered it your solemn duty to spread the rumor as quickly as
physically possible."
"I thought he was taking advantage of you!" cried out the Senshi of Love.
"I do not believe you. Not for a second." Hotaru's eyes narrowed and her
tone became more heated. "You just wanted to spread the newest juicy rumor!
That's all! Do you know what happened because of it? Haruka-papa heard! When
we left, she was waiting for us."
"Hotaru, I'm... I'm sorry!"
Hotaru's scowl deepened. "Sorry doesn't cut it. Do you have any idea how
humiliating it is to be 'caught in the act' by your 'father', especially
after the crap I went through last night?"
Hotaru scoffed. "Wait, I forgot. Your self-centered, trivially minded, boy
obsessed fluff-brain personality frightens away all things male who are
looking for anything deeper then a quick screw! Just because you can't find
someone who can stomach you for more then one night, doesn't mean you should
make others suffer because of your shortcomings!"
Minako reeled at the harshness of the assault. Hotaru knew that the self
appointed "Senshi of Love" was very sensitive about her inability to find a
boyfriend. It gave her a very easy target, and memories of the insults she
to which was oft victim to gave her one hell of an arsenal.
Ignoring, or rather reveling in, Minako's discomfort, Hotaru added, "I want
to make this clear: you will never do it again."
Minako gulped and nodded. "I understand."
"You better..." Hotaru released her, throwing Minako to the floor. The blond
senshi quickly scrambled away from Hotaru and stood on her feet.
Hotaru sighed. She looked at the wall, looked back to Ikuko and blushed.
"Ah, sorry about the wall, Ikuko-obasan..."
----------
Ikuko mutely looked around the room. She turned to Minako, who was about
ready to soil her fuku. She turned to her daughter who looked damn
intimidated. She looked to Chibi-Usa who seemed almost as confused as she
was. She looked to Hotaru who was both apologetic and enraged. Finally she
looked to Ranma, who seemed like nothing was amiss.
Silently, Ikuko stood up from her seat, and walked into the kitchen. Moments
later, she returned, holding a bottle of sake and a large water glass. She
sat back down at her table, opened the bottle, and filled the glass, which
she immediately drained.
"Okay," she asked in a tired, confused, and honestly overwhelmed voice.
"What the hell is going on here?"
Ranma stepped forward. "Okay, I can explain part of it. I'm used to being on
the spot like this."
"I can imagine," Usagi's mother dryly remarked.
Ranma smiled. "I don't know much about the Sailor Senshi stuff besides what
little Hotaru told me..."
Ikuko glanced at Sailor Saturn, who shyly waved hello.
"But I can explain why she was so mad at Minako."
Ikuko looked at Minako, who was still shaken.
"Please do."
"Well," Ranma started. "I'd say it's pretty basic. We went into a love hotel
so she could show me her senshi transformation and stuff. Minako over there
saw it and apparently, she told everybody 'bout it. Haruka found out where
we were, and was there to greet us when we left."
Ikuko winced. She could remember how her father would have reacted, and
after what Hotaru had gone thorough the night before... no wonder she was
willing to ring the little gossip's neck.
Ikuko sighed and looked at the empty glass in her hands. She could feel the
alcohol beginning to affect her. It was making all the stress just go away
in a happy, alcoholic haze. She wasn't drunk, just buzzed enough to take the
edge off and keep her from killing her daughter.
Looking over to the two sailor suited girls, she said, "Turn back to normal.
I don't want to have to explain what two of the Sailor Senshi are doing in
my house if my son or husband happen to walk in."
They nodded and in a flash of color, they shifted back to their normal
selves.
"Momma?" asked Usagi, "Does this mean you're not going to tell Daddy?"
"Of course not! Your brother has never been able to keep a secret, and your
father..." She sighed. "Your father is a good man and wonderful husband, but
the poor darling would have a nervous breakdown if he found out that you
were Sailor Moon."
"Does this mean I can still be Sailor Moon?" asked the odangoed girl.
"Of course. You do a service for the community, and while I might not like
the idea of my little girl running off to fight evil it's an important
responsibility. Just in the future, do not keep things like that secret...
AND DO NOT THREATNEN HOUSE GUESTS!"
Usagi gacked. "Yes Momma!"
Ikuko sighed. "Good. I want you to know I'm proud of you. It takes... well,
far more dedication then I though you possessed to be a devil hunter."
Usagi brightened with pride.
"I'm not going to ground you for being Sailor Moon. I'm not going to say
anything else about those costumes..." Ikuko's voice lowered. "I have this
sinking feeling that they have some god-awful spinning naked in a light show
transformation effect but I doubt you have any choice in uniforms. I'm not
laying blame for things you can't help."
The four girls blushed. Ranma nodded with a shallow smirk.
"But I still am grounding you."
Usagi winced. "But Momma... you said you were proud of me!"
"No buts," she snapped. "You attacked a guest and you've been keeping this
secret for four years! You're grounded for a month, and I want to know
exactly what is going on. No more secrets, so I make myself clear, young
lady?!"
Usagi nodded.
Ikuko stood to her feet and wobbled slightly. "I think I drank a little too
much a little too fast..."
Ranma immediately ran to her side and helped stabilize her.
"Thank you, Ranma-kun." She shook her head and pulled away from the young
man. "I'm fine."
Ranma let her go and stepped back.
"I'm going to go upstairs and lay down, and Usagi..."
"Yes Momma?"
"If it doesn't involve classes or saving the world, you are not to leave
this house."
"Yes Momma..."
"Good," Stated Ikuko as she stood up. Looker at her daughter she said, "You
are not to leave this house until we have a long talk. We have a lot of
things to talk about." Turning to the others she said, "Hotaru, I'm sorry
that I couldn't talk to you but I want you to know I'm here"
"Thank you, Ikuko-obasan."
"You're welcome," replied the woman.
"Hey," Minako elbowed Chibi-Usa, "What is she talking about?"
The pink-tressed young woman scowled. "We're going to have a very long chat,
Minako..."
Ikuko smiled and turned to Ranma, "You're a nice young man."
"Ah, thanks..."
"Take care of her."
Ranma blushed. "Thank you..."
"Oh, what's going on here?" whimpered Minako.
"And as for you," growled Ikuko looked at the Senshi of Love, "Learn to
respect the privacy of others!"
Minako shrank back a bit farther. "Can do!"
"Ikuko-mama?"
"Yes Chibi-Usa?"
"Would it be okay if I went out with Hotaru?" The odangoed girl asked in her
cutest and most sugary tone.
Ikuko sighed. "You have something to do with the senshi, don't you?"
Chibi-Usa gacked.
Ikuko smiled lightly and shook her head. "Go out with your friend. I'll talk
to you about it later."
"Thank you, Ikuko-mama! See ya!" Chibi-Usa exclaimed as she walked down the
steps.
Ikuko shook her head and waived goodbye to her 'niece'.
Chibi-Usa smiled at Hotaru and motioned her head for the small girl to
follow her.
"Goodbye, Ikuko-obasan!"
"Goodbye, Hotaru-chan."
"See ya, Ikuko-san."
"Good by, Ranma-kun."
Minako smiled and waived goodbye to Ikuko.
In response the woman scowled slightly. "Goodbye, Minako-san"
Minako winced at the formality and quickly left, following the others.
As soon as the four were clear of the front door, Chibi-Usa smiled at
Hotaru. "Want to go shopping?"
The black haired girl smiled slightly and looked over at Ranma.
"Fine with me..." he sighed. "Just don't expect me to play dress up doll."
Chibi-Usa pouted. "No fun!"
"Chibi-Usa-chan!" Hotaru chided.
"What are you two talking about?" Minako asked.
Both of the younger girls glared at the blond.
"Ah, never mind..."
"Lets go, Hotaru!" Chibi-Usa exclaimed. "We have to buy you a whole new
wardrobe!"
Hotaru blushed deeply. "Isn't it a bit early for that?"
"It's never to early to shop!" Usa replied.
"Why does she need a new wardrobe?" Minako asked.
Hotaru responded with an acidic glare.
"Ah, Hotaru-chan?" Ranma asked, "I know she ain't exactly your favorite
person right now." He paused, and added, "And she ain't exactly mine, but
she is your friend, right?"
Hotaru sighed and glared at Minako. "I'll tell you what is going on, but don
't just go around telling everyone," Hotaru snapped.
"Ah, okay... I can keep a secret!"
"Like you kept the last one?" Chibi-Usa growled.
"I didn't know it was a secret!"
"I might as well," Hotaru sighed. Minako, I'm..."
BEEP! BEEP!
In one fluid motion, all three girls reached into their pockets and withdrew
cell phones.
"Hey, what's that?" Ranma asked
Hotaru sighed. "Our friend, Yoko is having problems. Oni attack at the park,
we have to go help stop it..."
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