Disclaimer, I own nothing. These are more side stories. And no more dream sequences for awhile. I hate writing those.

Side story : Sakuraba ½ : How they all ended…

The Week before the marriage, the greatest martial arts battle ever known took place. And yet, while it did take place, no one but a few ever knew about it. Ranma was going all out, for the first time ever, against Happosai, for the title. No half measures was this battle, it was a battle true to Happosai’s form, and needs. Stakes were simple, Ranma wins, or Akane must marry Ranma, who will be forever locked as a woman. And Happosai gets to watch the consummation, nightly for a year.

Ranma would not allow this. But more than that, he was tired of this. He had killed a God what was so tough about the one martial art’s master. He should have known. Happosai was a Half Oni, and much demonic blood poured in his veins. The fight raged for over 3 days, new techniques were shown, things he had developed, and never shown anyone else. Things Happosai had never done as well. But as far as anyone could tell, they never started the fight. They started perfectly still, and both Shifted, so fast that they effectively left the time stream itself and played their fights out on another plane altogether. In their minds, for three days they fought, never yielding, slowing or stopping. Strike and counter strike, they barreled back and forth, until Ranma proved himself the victor in the end, and back in the real world, Happosai erupted with blood from his nose, and mouth. Happosai just staggered forward, and fell flat on his face. He lifted it once, to acknowledge his defeat, and Ranma as the new master of the Oni school of anything goes. Then, he died. His corpse blackened, turned to ash, and blew off in the win. Where the ash fell, leaves of plants withered and died. The two Morons looked on in awe, for they knew this time, he would not be back.

Cologne knew then thatHapposai had been toying with her years ago. She had already released Ranma from the kisses, for he was the savior of the village, Shampoo had to be shipped back to the village, but it was deemed no fault of hers that the god slayer would not stay in the village. He was bound for bigger things. She was held in much honor for being as close to him as she was. Years later, Shampoo received a frozen vial and instructions in Chinese, on how to use it. It was a vial that would give her the ability to bear Ranma’s children, even if she could not have him herself. In this she gained even greater honor, for her two girls were strong, warriors, and helped lead the village to survive the great freeze. The village, and her people were safe, These things made a 300 year old Shampoo very happy. Her only sadness after all of these years was never seeing Ranma again. He was her only regret. Even when she died, he was the last name on her lips. “Nihao my Airen, Ranma…”

Sakuraba ½ : Side story : Dark future.

For every choice, there one taken, and one not. Setsuna Meioh made a choice. She chose to follow the instructions of her future self, when panicked that self had come back, to stop her from answering the phones. Her future self had had one too many run ins over the centuries with Skuld, and Urd, and knew if one of their “projects” was messed with, they had no compunction on removing the usability of the time gates. That was a choice. In this one Setsuna chose well

Ranma also made choices, in this. He chose not to give in to the rage, and instead descended into a safe, though self destructive despair. But in some worlds, he chose another way. And this is one of them. One that Rei saw a brief glimpse of, and that Setsuna almost sent the scouts to destroy him because of.

Mercury looked again at her computer. It showed the last of the troops moving into place. This was no time for screw up, not at this late stage in the game. Behind her, the picture of her goddess, Usagi, hung on the wall. There would be changes from how you knew her. Gone were the sailor suits, in favor of some remodeled Silver empire battle armor. At her hip, both an energy pistol and a mace. She poured over plans, thinking of how the last series of battles had gone, and how depleted her foe already must be. ‘She may have had the advantage in being able to collect soldiers, a being of love and all, but she cannot match my intellect. In the end, Minako will fall like the others.’ She thought to her self. Her troops were battle hardened, trained, and well provisioned. She still held the mercury computer, and that computer had always given her a huge advantage over the others when it came to the wars. After Minako falls, only two shall remain, the two that have not yet participated in the unification war, and not even Ami wanted to mess with. Saturn and Pluto had opted out, not even collecting armies to fight on their behalf. Several times Setsuna had some to try and broker piece between the waring senshi, but how. Crystal Tokyo must be formed to save the race, One must be crowned queen for that to happen, and only the best could be queen. After a few centuries of life they ALL thought they were the best. And that eventually lead to the unification wars. Governments were swept aside as the self proclaimed living goddess’s marched the earth. Billions were killed in the wars. Mar’s twice in her coalitions collapse used nukes against Uranus and Neptune’s alliance, to no avail. In the end the three of them destroyed each other. Across the planets this war raged. One by one the senshi’s armies, and themselves were destroyed, usually by Mercury’s forces. On the outskirts of time, only the neutral points of Saturn and Pluto still existed. Twice fleets had gone to Saturn, only to be annihilated. No one had ever dared to attack Pluto.

Ami again looked at her plans and gave the attack order. Soon the armies engaged, and the battle raged on.

“What will you do once this is all over, Ami” A well known voice said behind her. The voice of the red eyed Senshi. “proclaim yourself queen? Rule a kingdom of what is left of humanity?”

Ami looked annoyed at her fellow senshi. “I will do whatever it takes, Whatever is needed. That is why I have won, Setsuna. I did what had to be done. We must have a queen”

“Yes, we will have a queen, and I will serve her” agreed Pluto. Ami taking this for acceptance, turned back to the battle at hand. A few hours later, the last of Minako’s forces were defeated, and minako’s lifeless body was dragged before Ami. ‘Its over, I won’ she thought to herself.

Her communicator flashed to life “Ami-chan, This is over now” she heard Setsuna’s voice say. She opened the communicator, so long unused and looked at the image of Pluto near her gates. “Yes, it is. I will return to the earth, and..” Pluto interrupted her. “no, you will not. The Queen should be arriving there now. You are going to stay here, and die for your crimes like the rest of you have. Serenity will empower a new set of senshi, and we shall see if we can fix this mess you all have made.”

Ami sputtered in rage (its amazing how 400 years of constant warfare can change a girl) “What do you mean Queen, or Serenity? She is dead. WE ALL watched her die. Without the chance of being reborn. That is why we have fought this damm war. She cannot possible be alive.”

“You are more or less correct, Ami, but you forgot one basic premise of the time gates. Anyone who has traveled in them, is immune to events changing them once they have gone in them.”

One of her subordinates speaks up “My lady, A huge energy spike is being generated off planet, huge. Only known weapon system in databanks of this magnitude is Lady Saturn’s “planet destruction wave” attack. Computer estimates less than 1 min to release based on current energy wave, What should we do?”

Ami is stunned “I guess, We die” Her communicators view screen switched, to an image from the Earth, of a tall, lovely woman, dressed all in white, being escorted off of her ship, flanked by Saturnian guards. Ami saw her, her eyes grew Very wide, as she noticed, and saw what her mistake was. The last thought before Lady Saturn destroyed the planet Venus and all on her, was “I knew she was in our time too, Hotaru must have hidden her all of these years.” The last image she saw was the woman turn and wave, her long pink pony tails moving with her. Then the image, as well as the planet itself, went blank as Saturn’s raw power consumed everything

Before the time gates, Pluto watched as this possibility played out. The danger was passed of course, but this future time line always gave her chills for some reason. Of course she often watched it, for the same reason some like to watch horror movies. The horror of it excited her on some level. She looked down at the small lady, who also watched it play out. “This is only one reason I am always on guard. Future timelines like this one”. The Small lady grabbed her leg and hugged it tightly. “that is not our future is it?”

“ No, not if we can help it.” She smiled at her charge again. ‘No, Never if we can help It’, she thought.