[Ranma/SM][FanFic] The Phoenix Prince Saga Book 2, Part 6, Chapter 2
Linda Ward
Amilia nestled down in the warm embrace of the smiling rogue
that had absconded her from the grotto where she had awaited her twin
sister and smiled. She was wondering how Akai was reacting to the fact
that she had suddenly gone missing. Not that she meant anything mean
by it or anything. It was just that Akai had gotten all of the
masculine attention for so long that Amilia was relishing her chance
to be in the spotlight. And maybe there was a bit of a mischievous
streak in her somewhere deep inside.
Then her smiling rouge looked down and gave her another one
of those perfectly wonderful smirks of his.
"So, Amilia-chan, how do you like flying so far?" he asked.
"It is most wonderful, Shima!" she cried back against the
wind.
"Good! Oh... no. I forgot about lunch! I'm terribly sorry
Amilia-chan!"
"That is alright, Shima. I am not terribly hungered."
"No, it's not alright! It's my fault you missed lunch, and
thus shall I make it up for you!"
And suddenly they were spiraling down to the ground again.
**********
Some time later they were sitting across from each other in
the common room of a tiny inn some many kilometers away from the main
Lunar city. They had just finished with the main course of their meal
and were mulling over what type of fruit pie they wanted for after
with their spiced cider.
"I think perhaps Lunar gooseberry would be good, Shima. You
may like it. It is much like the Earthian gooseberry as the fruit was
originally imported from the Lunar surface." Amilia finally decided.
Shima shrugged. "It's your choice, Amilia-chan. I don't mind
too much any which way." Then he directed his attention to the
innkeeper. "My good man! May we have one of your fine Lunar gooseberry
pies for our repast?" He asked as the rail-thin innkeeper strode over
on his stalk-like legs.
"Most certainly, good sir and madam. It shall be along in
short order." The innkeeper, who was a rather jovial fellow despite
his slender appearance, replied with a cheeky grin and a sketchy bow.
As he moved away, Amilia tried to turn the conversation
towards Shima. "So, Shima. Do you come here often?" she asked
innocently. Which is why she was so surprised when Shima burst out
laughing. "What?! What is so humorous?!" she asked indignantly.
"Oh, I am sorry, Amilia-chan! But that... that must be one
of the oldest pick-up lines in the history of Earth!" he choked out
as he slowly brought himself under control again.
"I do not understand, Shima. What is a 'pick-up line'?" Amilia
was confused. She truly did not understand.
"It's hard to explain exactly. I think the one of the best
way's I've heard it explained though was when Endymion informed me
that it was how men that no one really wanted as a life-partner
attempted to get women that had not chosen a partner yet to both talk
to them and preferably share a sleeping space with them. My
half-brother told me that women in the same situation also used such
lines. Which is the cause for my laughter, Amilia-chan. I had not
realized that you thought yourself one that no man would want!" He
finished in mock-outrage.
"Oh! Oh no, Shima! That is not.. I am meaning that that is...
I .." she stammered, quite flustered.
"Don't worry about it, Amilia-chan. I understand what you
mean." He allowed with another of his smirks at her scarlet face.
Then the pie arrived and they were much more distracted by
food then embarrassment.
**********
"What's that?" Shima asked, leaning slightly over her shoulder
so as to see the electronic mess covering the workstation before her.
"This?" Amilia asked, waving at the scattered circuit boards,
wires, and chips.
Shima nodded. "Yes. That."
"Oh. Well, eventually, it should be a micronized computer."
"Like the Lunar Mainframes?" He asked, picked up a stray
circuit board.
"Yes, sort of. Although much, much smaller than those." She
replied.
"Well, of course. There's not nearly enough stuff here to make
a big thing. Not without magic anyway." Shima shrugged, setting the
board back down on the table.
For sometime Amilia worked diligently at the tiny workings
with Shima hovering about watching and making a general nuisance out
of himself. Finally, she set her tools down upon the table and turned
to face him.
"Shima, is there something I can help you with?"
"Me? Oh. No. There's nothing."
"Are you sure?"
"Why yes. Of course I am. Why?"
"I do not know. Mayperchance it is because you have insisted
upon hovering about for nearly two Terran hours now?"
"Uh... Sorry, Amilia-chan. I'm just a bit bored. What you were
doing looked interesting so I decided to watch."
"Do you know how intensely annoying and distracting that is?"
"I... um... I'm beginning to find out, I think..."
"Good. If you insist on standing around though, kindly make
use of your proclivity towards idleness and assist me."
"Sure. What do you need?"
"If you could hand me that 440 fromitz?"
***********
"Ami-chan," Shima was circling around the girl who stood in a
very awkward looking stance in the middle of the training room. "what
are you trying to do?"
"Akai said that this would help with my control." Amilia
replied, slowly moving from her extremely awkward stance into a rather
odd contortion that involved putting one arm back behind one leg while
the other leg was stretched up above her head and the other arm was
held out at a forty-five degree angle from the body.
"She did?" Shima's voice indicated an obvious sense of
disbelief mixed with curiosity. Which was a good thing sense, at her
current angle, Amilia couldn't really see much of any of him. "The
only thing I can see it helping is your chiropractor's practice.
Doesn't that hurt?"
Amilia had just switched into another position that looked
like something you would see some hapless soul contorting into in a
vision of Hades. The human body was just not designed to DO that!
"Well, it is fairly awkward." Amilia conceded after she gained
her insanely painful looking position.
"Why don't you just study one of the Martian Arts?" Shima
finally asked, his curiosity getting the better of him at last. "I
could teach you. Kina-chan is already learning from me. It wouldn't
be any trouble to teach you too. Really."
Amilia straightened with a rather loud crackle pop sound
emanating from her back. Putting a hand to her back, she straightened
entirely to her normal upright position. "Ouch. No, Shima. That is
alright. I would rather not study those arts."
"Why? It can't be pain. Anything would be less painful than
whatever that was you were doing." Shima argued, gesturing towards
the ground.
"Mayperchance you are correct, Shima. However, I chose not
to condone any art which doth teach of the taking of another's life."
"No matter how necessary, huh?" Shima's voice was tinged with
wry irony. His face was expressionless.
"That is correct. I cannot condone such senseless violence
under any circumstance, which is why I do chose to distance myself
from the barracks so often." Amilia finished, turning from him to
begin gathering her things in preparation for her return to her rooms.
"Then you most certainly do not condone myself. Or Ranko. Or
Prince Endymion." He paused, his face stern, as he let her turn back
to face him again before finishing. "Or your sister, Akai."
"Shima! That is not.." She began, her face horrified as the
realization of what she had done dawned upon her.
He held up a hand. "No. That is exactly what you meant. You
said that you 'cannot condone such senseless violence under any
circumstance'. ANY circumstance, Amilia-san." She winced at the
sudden cold formality filling his so often warm voice, and shuddered
further to know that it was directed at her and why. "Those
'circumstances' have involved the defense of ourselves or defense of
others from those less scrupulous than yourself. Those 'circumstances'
have involved ending the existence of a creature who had cut down a
family in cold blood and destroyed a tiny child's life. Those
'circumstances' have saved my life and those around me. Those
'circumstances'," He paused again, catching her eyes in his own
piercing glare. "have involved saving your life.
Amilia knew of what he was referring to. She had been there
when it happened after all. She had watched as Shima and her twin
sister had suddenly and violently extinguished the spark of life in
the two beasts that had attempted to have their way with her. She had
been so grateful then. Grateful that they had come and saved her from
them.
She had simply crouched there against the wall and let Shima
deal with Akai as her sister had become so suddenly sick about what
she had forced herself to do. She realized that now. Akai was not
the violent warrioress that so many thought she was. She had had to
FORCE herself to kill those two men, despite the fact that she knew
what they would do if she hadn't.
Suddenly, Amilia felt so totally and completely hypocritical.
With a few simple, thoughtless words, she had destroyed so much more
than she could ever help to regain. With a irrational turn of phrase
she had effectively alienated one of the only people outside of the
Senshi who would speak to her with anything approaching respect. She
had annihilated any chance she had to learn of the strange dimension
that Shima existed in with her own self-admittedly selfish
convictions.
She could not understand what had possessed her to do as she
had done. No one could truly influence Shima. And that was exactly
what she had tried to do in her foolish attempt to sway him to her
own choice of non-violence.
He was a unique and completely individual force in the
structured existence of the Court of Serenity. Everyone knew who they
were before the Queen. And they knew whom everyone else was as well.
Except for Shima.
He was uncontrollable by any save himself and at times, her
own sister, Akai. No one ever knew what he would do from one moment
to the next. That disturbing non-predictability particularly disturbed
the Guardian of Pluto, not that Amilia had much to do with the elusive
Keeper of the Gates of Time. Which was a situation she took pains to
keep as it was, just as the rest of the Senshi did.
Amilia slowly fell to her knees before Shima as she thought
upon her actions. Slowly tears began to trickled down her face. She
gazed up at him through watery eyes.
"Please forgive me, Shima-sama." She whispered, clasping her
hands together. "I understood not what I said. Oh please, forgive me
my error." Her gaze suddenly fell to the padded ground they stood
upon.
Shima took an unhurried knee before her and reached out lifted
her face with one hand so that he might look into her eyes.
"Do you understand now, little one? Why it is that I feel I
must fight? Why your sister and the other girls feel the same?" He
asked, the sternness in his voice now softened with an blanket of
gentle kindness.
Amilia nodded slowly, silently.
Shima smiled softly as he reached out with his free hand and
gently brushed away the tears that had fallen down her face. "We only
want to help, Amilia-chan. We do not take pleasure in those deaths we
must cause. Never, ever think we do. We fight to defend, to protect,
and to preserve the innocence of others who either cannot fight or who
chose to serve a higher calling. Maybe you are one of those blessed by
the gods. I don't know."
Amilia moved as if to speak, but Shima held up a hand with one
of his smirks, though his eyes were sad. "I understand that you do not
wish to fight, Amilia-chan, but I want you to understand something
about the Martian Arts."
"I do not understand, Shima." Puzzlement filled her expression,
wiping away the grief and pain that had been there.
"Not all of the Martian Arts are about killing, little one." He
stood, bringing her up with him. "In fact, most are about the avoidance
of violence. All of Mars learns at least one of the Martian Arts as
part of their schooling during childhood. However, we do have those
such as yourself upon the Planet of War. There are those who chose not
to take the lives of others among what was once my people. Yet, they
too learn of the Martian Arts."
"Shima.."
"Wait. Let me finish. Some of the Arts were developed through
the use of passive aggression in order to reach ones goal. To this day,
I have not heard of the passive aggression Arts taking of life, though
if forced, I am quite certain they are capable of it. As with any of
the Arts, one is taught that one must always be certain of the amount
of force to use against one's opponent in order to avoid death whenever
possible. I do not normally seek to destroy my opponents, though it
has happened. You need not ever seek death for another. However, if
you know that you are capable of such action if it is needed, you are
less likely to need the ability."
"Permit me to attempt to understand this which you have said.
It is better for me to possess the knowledge upon the manner in which
action must be taken for to end the existence of another for such
reason that by the possession of the aforementioned knowledge I shall
endeavor to cause the diminution of the likelihood of necessary
possession of such knowledge to be of sine qua non."
"Um. I think so."
"Alright. I may admit that I do not fully understand the exact
need of the ability to enact pain upon another creature. However, I
shall attempt the learning of this passive aggression Art that you
speak of, Shima." Amilia finally decided. "As it exists, though, the
training must wait for another day. It is time and beyond that I must
be returning to my quarters. Fare thee well, Shima of the Lord
Phoenix."
"Fare thee well also, Amilia of the Kingdom of Learning."
Shima returned with a flourishing bow as she left the room.
***********
The soulless beasts assailed heavily upon the azure shield
originally erected by Shima with the Phoenix Force and now kept
powered by the steady feed of ki being fed into it by Amilia in
the defended center of the diamond created by the five others she
ran with. She may not have been able to force herself to take even
the existences of the soulless demons which assaulted them, but she
could by Mercury defend those who could!
"Minanoai! There! Those armored minotaur things have a chink
in their armor generally around the center of the chest! It's
generally in the vicinity of that gem there!" She shouted, having
scanned the entire division in order to find some shared weakness.
"Thanks, Amilia!" Minanoai called back over her shoulder even
as she sent out several hundred of her signature ki blasts towards the
gems on the armor.
Amilia glanced up from the palmtop computer that she had
managed to build with Shima's help just in time to see Kina spin kick
something that looked disturbingly like the Earthian God, Shiva, in
the head. Four faces and six arms wielding stone swords and axes
tended to cause such an association, though Kina was managing to hold
her own against it. Amilia almost shouted a warning as another arm
came towards her friend, but Kina parried it with her oak-leaf guarded
sword right before punching the blade through the creature's chest and
letting it die in a blue ooze.
The swords had been gifts from Shima before the battle began.
Each of the girls carried one. And each one was unique to the girl.
Amilia's own was more like a baton then anything, with no edge or
point to it. However, Akai's was a curved affair that Shima said was
a style used in an Earthian version of one of the Martian Arts called
'kung fu'. There were steel loops running through the inner edge for
some unknown reason. The hilt, guard and pommel were remarkably plain,
though. The decoration was on the blade itself, a long curling wave
that traced the length of the blade.
Minanoai carried a straight blade with a simple crescent for
a guard. Reiki's sword split into two, one with a dragon carved onto,
the other with a phoenix, representing her tie to the Lord Phoenix
through her brother. They were all beautiful weapons, though quite
deadly. But none was quite like Shima's blade. A long tongue of flame
projected from the hilted and brought fiery death to any who got in
the way of its path.
She recognized his sword of course. No one else had ever
managed to wield the Martian Sword of the High Prince with its
metamorphic blade. Some said it was tied to Shima through the medium
of spilt blood. Others just said that it was the mastery of the blade
that caused the Lord Phoenix to chose him as his Champion Among
Mortals. Others said exactly the opposite. The only thing everyone
knew for certain was that Shima was the only one to use that sword
in combat for nigh onto five hundred years now. Shima himself had
once mentioned offhand that he wasn't the one that chose the blade
he wielded, but the sword was. It was confusing, but then, so was
Shima.
Which was why Amilia was now locked into a deadly battle
against so many. She had never ever intended to ever be in a situation
like this. But then, one can never truly predict the future. Especially
not if one is a friend of the Phoenix Prince. Amilia smiled wryly at
that thought, even as she focused on sending more energy into the
shields covering them.
Then, suddenly, she realized that Kina had somehow been drawn
from their group deep into enemy lines. Even as she yelled and
screamed for her tall and lanky friend to return to the safety of the
shields, she was forced to watch as a monstrous creature that may have
once been a man snuck up behind the girl. Amilia howled in pain and
outrage as the creature drove its single overlarge claw straight
through the back of her dear friend. Kina arched suddenly against the
pain lancing through her body. Her face was a horrified mask of
anguish. Blood ran everywhere, from her mouth, her nose, even her
ears. Amilia could only watch her friend's trembling, ensanguined
lips form the sacred words that would unlock her power entirely in
one gigantic burst of light, power, and sound. Amilia knew as well
as Kina that those words were suicidal. But then, Kina was already
dead and she knew it. As the short phrase was completed, her lips
drew back into a terrifyingly satisfied smirk.
Then her body was ripped apart as every single iota of energy
she had ever called upon suddenly burst from every cell in her wiry
frame. A sudden desolation came across the demon corps as the
undeniable eruption of power swept over them and reduced them to
their component atoms. By the time the light faded enough to see by,
everything in a hundred foot radius from the sight of Kina's death
had been eradicated. Barely three demons stood between the smaller
and sadder band and the nearest edge of the explosion.
They fought on with even more energy after that. Amilia began
feeding the slight amount of energy that was no longer needed in the
shields into the other three Senshi. Shima, with his direct feed into
the Phoenix Force that even Saffron had not been capable of
destroying, neither needed nor wanted for extra power in his
struggle.
Then as abruptly as Kina had vanished from their midst,
Minanoai slipped upon ground slick with demon blood and fell beneath
their trampling appendages. She held herself together and kept herself
alive for just long enough for the others to get at least a hundred
feet away from her before whispering her words of release.
As soon as they had managed to move out of the kill-zone,
almost solid bolt of opaque golden energy shot up into the air then
burst apart and showered death back down upon the demon corps. And
then there was one more desolate hundred foot circle into which no
one, human or demon, would enter scarred the Lunar surface.
They struggled on for what seemed like hours longer, leaving
countless beings dead and bereft in their wake. Shima was constantly
calling for them to stay with him and keep fighting. He knew they were
beginning to lose spirit with the fall of their two comrades. So he
kept at them, fighting alongside them, refusing to give up. Just by
being there and staying strong despite the pain that he obviously felt
because of the loss of their dear companions managed to keep them
moving ever onward towards the Princess Serenity.
It happened without warning. Just as the other had fell, so
did Amilia. The shields above her fell for just the briefest of
instants, but that was all the fliers needed. One suddenly swooped
down out of the sky and plucked her from the center of their band. She
gave a single startled, painfilled cry as the heavy talons dug into
and tore at her shoulders and back.
The flier that had grabbed her carried her high into the air
above the band and deep into the flock of evil, bird-like entities.
The winged creatures soared around her, tearing at her skin, and
slowly torturing her to death.
She endured for as long as she could before responding. Slowly,
her bloody, sightless face raised from where she had hung her head
against her chest and stared out before her. Slowly her lips formed
four words.
"I understand now, Shima." She whispered, even as the fliers
screamed and dove at her again.
She reached deep with in herself and found the words she
needed. The words that would facilitate her end and bring death and
destruction to her enemies. It was the ultimate of kamikaze techniques
and each of the Senshi had the ability within them if they ever found
the abilities needed. And now, the sworn pacifist of the Senshi had
found a need so powerful that it nearly drove her to tears.
"Sonzai Hitei Suru." Her lips formed the words, but no sound
emerged, as the fliers had finally managed to remove her throat.
For a moment, she felt nothing and tears ran down her face as
she contemplated her failure. Then she felt it. The cold building
within her. The ice beginning to form on her skin. And then the sudden
glorious eruption that neither hurt nor caused her any emotion but an
abrupt and wondrous joy.
The sudden release of every iota of energy by the Senshi of
Ice caused a lot of pain. As the sphere grew to its one hundred foot
diameter, every last one of the fliers were sucked within. The bodies
rained down upon the demon corps like a pestilence from heaven itself.
But the soul which had once been Amilia, the gentling
counterpart of Akai and a Senshi in her own right, no longer cared. She
was happy now, though a distant part of her felt a nagging sorrow at
leaving an important part of herself behind. Then she felt a tugging
at her soul and she found herself being pulled from her vantage point
above the field of battle to another place. A place where she was once
again with Kina and Minanoai, and they were reunited with their
slightly less known friends and allies, Princess Soramegami of Uranus
and Princess Hitode of Uranus. The youngest of the Outer Senshi,
Princess Shizukesa of Saturn was not in sight.
Then it dawned on Amilia. Shizukesa, named so in home of
calming the raging hurricane inside of the small girl, was being held
back until the end. She was only to use her powers as a last resort.
And Amilia suddenly knew that she would see Shizukesa soon. As well
as the other girls that she had fought so long beside.
************
Author's Notes: If anyone was wondering, the scene between Shima and
Amilia about fighting did come out of real life, with some
modifications. It was a conversation I once had with a friend
who was a conciousnous objector. I have much respect for that
friend, especially since he now doesn't try to make me into
a conciounsous objector. And no, I don't really know how to
spell that.
Translation note: Sonzai Hitei Suru = (roughly) Existance Negated
Soramegami = (roughly) Sky Goddess
Hitode = starfish
Shizuesa = peace, calmness