Setsuna watched with her one good eye as Ranma went off to follow the map she'd given her to the ancient lost city of Atlantis. She felt bad about setting the neo-girl on a path that would unleash the darkness that she worked so hard to keep buried in her heart, but it was the only possibility that might save the future. Not only the future of her friends, but that of humanity as a whole.
She had tried talking to her past self several times, but had never manage to convince her to give up the futile and ultimately fatal quest for the supposedly perfect future that would become known as Crystal Tokyo. And the farther back she traveled, the less willing to listen to her future self Sailor Pluto had become. Leaving her with only this choice.
Now that she had opened Pandora's box, she could only hope that Ranma had what it would take to fight against giving in completely to the darkness for long enough, then maybe there would be a chance... She knew that for better or worse, what she had set into motion was now unstoppable. Even now she could feel herself slipping from the time stream, fading away as all shadows do. And then she was gone. And in her place stood a new version of Setsuna.
The new Setsuna looked in the direction that the red-haired girl had gone and a small sad smile showed on her face. There would be suffering on both sides of this conflict, but in the end it would all be worth it. She only wished that her younger self knew the things that she knew now. 'Oh well, no help for it' she thought just before raising the time-key staff and vanishing back to her own time.
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Sailor Pluto frowned as she felt a ripple in flow of space-time. Something had just gone terribly wrong. She hadn't felt anything like this since the Dark Moon family had found a way to bypass the time gates and arrived in the present. When that had occurred, her future self had come to see her warn her as to what was happening within seconds. This time she waited for several minutes and still nothing. Meaning that most likely that there wasn't an older her to come back and warn herself. 'Okay, first things first,' she thought. 'I need some information and the only possible source would be...' and with that she teleported to the current location of Chibi-Usa only to arrive in the middle of a den of Chaos.
The pink haired young girl let out a cry of pain as she once again faded out, this time nearly completely. Usagi desperately focused her will upon the crystal in her hands in an effort to keep her future daughter from disappearing, but even the silver crystal had its limits. Then suddenly, just before fading completely, Chibi-Usa slowly began to reform. Her facial features changed slightly and her once bright pink hair was now a fiery red. The girl's now Blue-Grey eyes snapped open and focused on Usagi. "Daddy!" she cried as she glomped Usagi. The chaos that had once held the room suddenly turned into a quiet in which you could hear a pin drop.
She pulled back with tears still streaming from her eyes as looked seriously into Usagi's eyes. "Poppa, we have to help Mommy!", she told the now stunned Usagi. "We have to help her before she does something really bad", the young girl cried, the desperation and fear in her voice obvious to all.
Usagi had never been one to react quickly to shocking turns of events, but this time, where the near loss of her daughter, said daughter's sudden recovery, and the changes made during said recover would have normally left her floundering and looking for direction, the tears and pleading in the voice of her daughter were more than enough to tell her what had to be done.
"Everything will be fine, Usa-Chan," she told the girl with a reassuring and comforting tone. "Just tell me what I need to know to help your mother. I promise that I'll save her," she said while giving Chibi-Usa a loving hug. And in the background, Setsuna could feel the mother of all headaches headed her way.
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It was a place where there should have been no life. The cold would have long since frozen the blood of most creatures in their veins. However, across this barren land marched a girl, bundled in coats, furs and anything else that would help to hold off the cold. Ranma Saotome would not stop until she reached her goal. And reach it she did. After three days on non stop walking, with nothing more than her furs and her ki to keep her from freezing, she found herself looking upon what at first glance seemed to be a mountain covered with the ever present snow.
As instructed by the woman that gave her the map, she began the process of sweeping the snow away from the side of the mountain. When she had cleared away enough to see what was beneath the ice, what she found was breath taking. A city encased in ice, much like a snow globe. But most of all, she saw her last chance at becoming a man again and regain what she had lost. ‘Akane' the thought flittered across her thoughts. If Akane couldn't love her as a woman, then she would regain her manhood, no matter what it took. With that thought in mind, he started the long process of burning through the ice with his ki. Ranma Saotome didn't lose.
But what Ranma didn't know was that what waited for someone with the right bloodline on the other side of the ice wasn't manhood. It was a blessing and it was a curse.