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Story: [Ranma The Hobo Senshi]

Summary: Saffron happens, the wedding happens, and Ranma makes a decision.

Genre: Adventure?

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Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

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It wasn't that Ranma wasn't happy to hear about Saffron being reborn, as much as it was that him surviving didn't actually change anything.

Ranma had walked into that fight with the full intent to kill the Phoenix King, and he'd walked out of it much the same. That Saffron had managed to survive being killed didn't change that.

It was... unsettling.

Ryoga had always run around yelling about killing him, but Ranma had never taken it seriously. Ryoga was a friend, no matter how much the pig annoyed him, or how violent they tended to end up being to each other. Actually, that violence was one of the main contributors to Ranma considering them friends. Ryoga was great fun to fight, what with his unpredictable wanderings leading him to ever-more peculiar artifacts and techniques.

So Ranma had never really taken him seriously when he'd yelled about killing him. Ryoga had a temper and a foul mouth, vocally threatening Ranma with murder had been inevitable from the start.

Mousse wasn't so clear-cut, what with Amazons being what they were, but he was also hilariously inept and more likely to hit everything except for Ranma, than Ranma himself. It didn't really matter what the boy's intent was when he didn't have the skills to follow through with it.

Or... at least it hadn't.

But... nothing had changed. The fact that Ranma had failed to kill Saffron – through a technicality – hadn't changed anything at all. He'd gone into it with the intent to kill, he'd walked out of it with the grim satisfaction of having achieved it.

And if the end results of trying to kill someone didn't matter, then-... Then Mousse might actually have been going after him with murder in mind. And that suddenly didn't seem as funny as it used to.

Beyond all of that however, nothing had changed.

Happosai was a bastard, Akane was nice except for when she wasn't, Nabiki was greedy, Kasumi was pretending not to notice what was happening, Shampoo was clingy and violent both, Ukyo was violently defensive, the Kuno family was insane, and nothing ever changed.

He'd been inches away from marrying Akane, and no matter how much that particular fiasco had been orchestrated by their busybody fathers, anyone with eyes should've seen it as a declaration of intent. That – beyond doubt – Akane's claim to marriage was the one that weighed the heaviest.

Instead, everyone had found some kind of excuse to convince themselves that the entire had thing had been a complete ruse. And-... And it was becoming increasingly obvious that Ranma wasn't going to be able to wait this out.

The fiancees, and the boys trying to kill him over them, were going to keep on convincing themselves that they had a chance. If they just waited a bit longer, if they tried a bit harder. It wasn't a contest of 'who can outlast the others', it wasn't a contest of 'who can win his heart first'. At some point when he hadn't been paying attention, it'd turned into a contest of who could delude themselves the most into thinking that he'd always loved them and that he was just too nice to properly break the hearts of everyone else.

And every single one of his fiancees seemed to be winning.

Akane could be excused on behalf of Ranma actually being in love with her. But then Ranma wasn't really sure-... She-... Akane hadn't leapt into the wedding with the desire to marry him, she'd done it because she'd been wanting to help him cure his curse.

Which was proof that she really was a nice person, and that she didn't really mind the thought of marrying Ranma. It was just-... Sometimes it didn't seem as if Akane was looking forward to that, but rather that she was resigned to it. Admittedly, resigned in the same was as Ranma was resigned to never being all that good with talking to people. As in, it would've been nice to get better, but that ship had probably long since sailed, and if he could've picked between that or his martial arts, he'd pick his martial arts every time.

So Akane was fine with marrying him. That was great. Except for how it wasn't. Because marrying someone was supposed to be amazing, filled with happy stuff, and not-... Not something you did because it was the least terrible option available.

Akane was nice and cute and-... And Ranma didn't want that for her.

Nabiki? If she wanted to screw herself over like that for money or something, that was up to her. She was weird, and Ranma didn't like her nearly enough to worry about her long-term happiness. Kasumi? Ranma didn't have a clue what went through that girl's brain, but seeing as she'd left him alone to clean up his own messes, he'd stand back and let her continue to do her thing until she asked for help.

But then, Ranma wasn't going to marry either of Akane's sisters, because he wanted to marry Akane.

Except for how he didn't.

It wasn't that he thought that some other guy would be better for her, even if he'd always felt more than a bit guilty about the chaos he'd brought into her life. It was just that... Akane didn't deserve to look at her future and feel resigned to it.

So he wasn't going to marry her.

The problem with that was... how the hell was he supposed to not do that?

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In hindsight, getting out of Nerima hadn't really been all that hard. Breaking it off with his fiancees hadn't been all that hard either. Avoiding his fiancees' wannabe-suitors going after him because he'd broken the hearts of the girls they loved, also hadn't been all that difficult.

It really came down to one realization. Who the hell could actually stop him?

Sure, the fathers or Ryoga could pull out a new technique to beat him down. But keeping him down? When he just wanted to go away, rather than fight? The only ones who might've been able to pull that off was Happosai and Cologne.

Happosai was... Happosai. He didn't really care about Ranma's fiancee-issues beyond whether or not it could be used to get him dressed up in women's underwear. And since that was a rare event, his only real gripe with the situation was that Ranma hadn't decided to go about breaking their hearts by stealing all of their underwear, just to make Happosai proud of his abilities and moral values.

Really, once Happosai figured out that Ranma was serious and that he wasn't really planning on sticking around in the aftermath, Happosai was easily dealt with in the shape of a swift kick to the noggin in the direction of a random rooftop.

Cologne was... a bit more complicated. She, after all, had a vested interest in sorting out the fiancee-mess in Shampoo's favor. However, she was also quite realistic about things. Not realistic enough to discourage her granddaughter from continuing to join in with the fiancee-shenanigans, but realistic enough to be very careful about antagonizing the young martial artist who'd very recently killed the immortal Phoenix King with very little outside-aid.

For all that she visibly and vocally disapproved of his decision, as long as all he asked was that she didn't try to push things further once he'd disappeared over the horizon, it wasn't really a request she could deny without landing herself in hot water with the rest of her tribe.

So, at the end there, Ranma had just... walked out of Nerima.

And, okay, so his mom wasn't happy with him at all, and he didn't exactly have any friends that he could stay with. But he'd lived on the road for most of his life, and even if cities hadn't really been part of his survival-education, they weren't really that different.

You scammed your way into food, and then you made sure that nobody who took offense to that scam knew where you lived. As long as Ranma didn't know where he lived, it was an easy system. Sure, there were rules about putting up tents in the city's parks, but it didn't have any rules about sleeping in the trees. Or, at least, no enforceable rules about sleeping in trees.

He wasn't overly fond of scamming people for food, but it wasn't like street-performances were technically legal in Japan and he could only keep that up for so long without getting caught at it. Not to mention that actually hunting for food would result in a heck-of-a-lot of problems, in no small part because people kept the strangest things as pets.

Having a proper paying job would've been nice, but it would've required an education that Ranma really wasn't in the mood to try and get, and considering his age there would've probably been someone running off to alert his pops about where he was. And for all that Genma couldn't stop him from leaving, he could certainly make himself a nuisance.

Ranma knew enough chi-techniques to keep himself safe and dry – and warm – in most any weather short of an outright hurricane, and he could keep most of them going in his sleep. So, for all that his current lifestyle was a big change from the Tendo dojo, it wasn't all that bad. He had more excuses to train those survival-techniques after all, even if the lack of easily-available warm water kept him female more often than not.

Still, there was-... For all that leaving Nerima had been reasonably easy there at the end, Ranma couldn't-...

Ranma was never going to understand Ryoga. Once, it would've been for the other boy's sheer pessimism throwing Ranma off. Now, it was more that Ranma couldn't really imagine feeling something like 'despair' strongly enough to separate it into a single emotion.

Everything was a whirl of jigsaw-puzzle hurricanes all punching each other's lights out. It was exhausting, and a lot of the time he did very much want to crawl under a rock and die. But with how it flip-flopped all over the place, he was gaining a newfound respect for Ryoga's ability to simply keep on despairing.

It was weird to admit that the pig might actually be more stubborn than himself.

And of course, that train of thought had lead them where such trains of thoughts always lead Ranma. Towards martial arts and training.

Which was why he'd invented his new and amazing rage-and-serenity fire-ice attack. It was great. Except for how it tended to react like someone throwing water on an oil-fire.

Not the worst kind of technique by any means, and it was definitely a proof of concept for combining several different emotion-based chi-techniques at once into hilariously explosive results.

So when he lost his fourth shirt to another damn youma-attack Ranma decided that the claw-using little shits had clearly signed up for voluntary target-practice. As the target.

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"Umm..." Usagi glanced around at her friends. "Guys? Shouldn't we... you know? Do something?"

"She... uhh... seems to have it under control?" Minako answered, hesitant.

Michiru made a shushing-gesture, eyes not wavering in the slightest from where they followed the scene. Haruka was smiling in wry understanding at her partner, as she too took in the show.

Ami had been completely reduced to nonverbal mumbling, face far too red to be healthy. And both Rei and Makoto were frowning thoughtfully. Hotaru was somewhere in between Ami and Michiru in expressions.

Usagi turned back to the spectacle herself.

They'd come rushing out into this park because Ami had detected a youma in the neighborhood. And there was one. It was currently being beaten to a pulp by a redheaded young woman in a shirt that'd clearly been a victim of the youma's sharp claws. Apparently she hadn't been wearing a bra at the time, because... they were bouncing around rather hypnotically.

Usagi wasn't really sure what they were supposed to do in this kind of situation.

The redhead wasn't a senshi, seeing as how she hadn't transformed in any way, but she wasn't a civilian either. It was actually starting to give her a headache. She wasn't supposed to have to think this much about running around hunting youma!

The redhead shouted out some kind of attack-name and then-...

Despite the years Usagi had known both Rei and Ami for, she'd never actually seen something both lit on fire and frozen solid at once. The results were... explosive.

The redhead leapt away, a feminine and kind of adorable squeak of surprise coming out of her as she dove behind a large tree.

There was a long moment of ringing silence in the aftermath of the explosion.

The redhead peeked around the tree. Blinked a few times, then shrugged and wandered over to the body of the unmoving youma.

"Oi, you alive or what, monster-guy?" The redhead poked at it with a toe, causing no reaction whatsoever. "Huh." She scratched her head, before with another shrug suddenly pulling a new shirt out of thin air, and then she was properly dressed again. With literally nothing in between those two moments, it was weird. "Gah. Why can't they just hit me with a mace or something like normal people? No, it always has to be claws. I bet they're related to cats somehow. Bastards." She held up the shirt that'd been shredded to see it better, a mournful tone to her entire posture. "Dammit. I'm not made of money, ya know?"

The youma chose that moment to move-...!

There was a loud crack. And then there was a crater where the youma's head used to be.

"Pfeh. As if. Pops could've played dead better in his sleep." The redhead turned on her heel and started walking off, leaving the youma to slowly begin disintegrating under the sun.

Usagi exchanged a glance with Rei, and then rushed after the retreating redhead. Anyone willing and capable of putting down a youma permanently was a useful person to at least have the contact-information of.

XXX

Saotome Ranma was an interesting kind of person.

Self-proclaimed 'best martial artist in the world', she had a strange – and rather peculiarly specific – fanatic hatred for cats. Considering how the senshi relied on Luna and Artemis for a great many things, they'd been given some really suspicious looks, up until Minako had explained that since they were aliens they weren't cats.

It said a great many things about Ranma's brain that he completely followed Minako's logic on the matter, even if she hadn't been entirely convinced by it.

Ranma wasn't a senshi and admitted to having basically no magical potential whatsoever, let alone strange dreams from a former life. She'd just been training martial arts since she'd learnt how to walk, and knew a great many things about 'chi' as a result.

Despite this, when the senshi offered her a way to keep in touch in case of more youma showing up, Ranma had cheerfully leapt at the opportunity. Purely because she enjoyed punching things.

If Usagi's magic had been entirely centered around punching things instead of purifying them, she probably would've felt much the same. It was less of a moral conundrum and more a desire to actually do things that they could do. And considering how youma were really the only non-human target for miles when it came to punching? Usagi could understand all too well that Ranma agreed to it in a heartbeat.

Rei was a bit more suspicious, but she was always suspicious. Ami was mostly too busy focusing on trying to figure out how Ranma manipulated her chi into doing the things she did, to bother too much about the whole trustworthiness-issue. Makoto looked caught somewhere between impressed and vaguely offended at Ranma's claim to be 'the best'. Haruka and Michiru were silently ribbing each other for checking her out. Hotaru was still a bit too embarrassed to look her in the eye. Minako was cheerfully running her mouth about the 'alien non-cats'. And Usagi was left with the important decision.

Namely to ask the girl why the hell she wasn't wearing a bra.

Those things looked like they'd really put a cramp in Ranma's back, and with how much she moved around in a fight, surely they'd get in the way like that?

Ranma's answer was a frown, a shrug, and a bizarre statement of it 'being easier to change that way'.

At which point Rei stole the conversation in order to lecture the girl on the importance of proper support in an active lifestyle, even if it felt uncomfortable at times. And that putting on a bra was easy as long as you didn't try to do it wrong.

Ranma had very much been willing to argue, but that had been the point where Luna had finally lost her patience with being left behind by the senshi, and decided to make her own appearance.

Ranma – in an amazing display of acrobatics – promptly ran screaming for the hills.

Usagi could kind of relate. If she'd known how much nagging Luna was capable of, back when they'd first met, she would've run screaming for the hills too.

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In the months since they'd first met her, the senshi had all come to know Ranma a little bit better.

Ignoring the way they'd all started to include her abilities in their battle-strategies on a regular basis, there was a lot of things to learn about Ranma.

For one, she had basically no shame about wandering around semi-naked, or flirting with people in order to score free ice-cream, even if she seemed startled and horribly embarrassed to witness someone else in a similar state of undress.

Ami had also been trying to get the girl to expand on exactly how she'd come up with the idea of combining fire and ice into a single attack. As in, expand upon her reasoning beyond a comment about bird-brains in China being able to do it.

Makoto had been trying to eke out a bit of martial arts training from the redhead, with varied success. Always open for a spar, Ranma was-... What Ranma actually considered 'training' was weird at the best of times and violently insane at most.

Considering that these were all the training-methods that she'd learnt her own martial arts from, there'd ended up being a lot of mutters about child-endangerment from Ami's side of things. Not that Ranma seemed to hold a grudge about any of it.

Yes, she was quite fed up with her father's many shades of bullshit, and she'd be the first to admit that at least a good half of the training-methods tried on her were either pointless or stupid. But she didn't seem to think that her time on the road with him had been bad by any stretch of the word, and would easily admit to even missing it some days.

Anything more than that... was mostly blank.

Ranma was a very private person, and would dodge most any subject about her father or family, as well as where she lived or anything related to school. Not that the senshi could really blame her for that.

They'd only ever met the girl in their senshi-forms after all, and were as such magically disguised. The other girl didn't have that, so her deciding to keep quiet about most personal things was perfectly understandable. If a little bit sad.

She seemed like a nice girl, for all of her rough edges and manic phobia of cats.

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"Saotome Ranma, prepare to die!"

The senshi jumped a little at the sudden shout, turning around to stare at where it'd come from.

Ranma sent a lazy wave in the direction of the boy who'd appeared out of nowhere to create a crater where Ranma had been standing moment earlier. "Yo, P-chan."

"Because of you, I've seen hell!" The boy continued, not reacting at all to Ranma's blase reaction, even if he didn't move to attack her again.

"What is it this time, bacon-bits?" Ranma tilted her head, looking somewhere between annoyed and a reluctant sense of vague fondness.

"You made Akane-chan cry!" The boy pointed accusingly at the redhead with the same umbrella he'd imbedded into the earth hard enough to make a crater earlier.

Ranma's face slipped. A sudden surge of something painful and sad and disappointed and filled with a kind of frustrated rage.

"Ryoga." Ranma's voice was calm. "She was resigned to it."

Ryoga opened his mouth to yell something else, only to pause. His stance shifted slightly, eyes wide at the girl in front of him, apparently understanding whatever the hell the two of them were talking about.

"But-..." Ryoga choked, a confused kind of worry in his eyes.

"She deserved to be happy, Ryoga." Ranma shook her head and gave him a bitter smile. "You understand, right?"

Ryoga continued to stare at her for a long moment, before he just kind of... collapsed backwards.

"Ranma, you bastard." Ryoga didn't move from where he'd fallen, eyes staring up at the sky. "You're the absolute worst."

The bitter smile on Ranma's face turned a bit wobbly, and she stomped over to the boy before sitting down next to him. "Shut up, P-chan."

It was... a really touching scene. Except nobody who was watching it had any clue as to whatever the hell was going on.

XXX

Unfortunately for the senshi and their lingering curiosity, Ranma remained as private a person as she'd ever been.

Ryoga barely warranted an introduction beyond 'old friend' – which had kind of been a given from how they interacted anyway – and the name 'Akane' resulted in blatantly changing the subject. It still sounded like there was something romantic involved, which had Minako paying attention to it, but in what way? Nobody knew.

Akane was clearly a girl both Ryoga and Ranma knew. Ryoga was upset that Ranma had made her cry, in a way that might mean that he actually had a crush on Akane. Ryoga and Ranma were friends, and Ranma and Akane had been... something. And Ranma had ruined that somehow because she wanted Akane to be happy rather than resigned.

The currently winning theory was that Ranma had ruined Akane's relationship with a boy or something, because she didn't think that Akane had been happy enough in that relationship. But that didn't really make a lot of sense. Mainly in the sense that in that case Akane should've realized that Ranma was a good friend, rather than have the two of them apparently having cut ties thoroughly enough that Ranma didn't want to even be reminded of the other girl's name. Maybe a falling-out during the events that neither of them wanted to try healing back up afterwards?

It wasn't very nice to spend so much time trying to unravel the mysteries of a person who didn't want their secrets unraveled, but it wasn't like the senshi didn't gossip about other people too. And each other.

They were warriors of love after all.

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A/n: I feel like my main problem with actually writing Sailor Moon crossovers is the frustrating lack of knowledge of the source-material, having grown up with the series as only a peripheral existence in my life. (And knowing how bad I've gotten with watching anime, that's not going to change any time soon.)

Still, this was one of those ideas that kind of just demanded to get written out. Mainly because I didn't want an 'instant friends' kind of story, even if they get along fine in their own ways.