Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2006-07-10 12:49 am
ptahrrific) wrote2006-07-10 12:49 am
Entry tags:
Hellsing/Sailor Moon: "The woman with two hearts! Blessed are the pure"
Title: The woman with two hearts! Blessed are the pure
Fandom: Hellsing, Sailor Moon
Genre: Comedy, light drama
Words: ~2700
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Hellsing is the creation of Kōta Hirano. Sailor Moon is likewise the creation of Naoko Takeuchi. I make references to other shows; they're not mine either. Characters used without permission - but with love (and, more importantly from a legal standpoint, without profit).
Notes: Hellsing/Sailor Moon crossover as part of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
hellsingreviews's 100th-review celebration. Takes place during the SMS series of the anime.
The woman with two hearts! Blessed are the pure
For Takagi Yumiko, being back in Tokyo was like stepping back in time. She hadn't returned to her native country for more than a week at a time since her move to Vatican City as a child; the Church had heard of considerable unholy activity there, but somebody always seemed to get to it before Section XIII could mobilize, so they had just given up. It felt almost unnatural to speak Japanese again.
Still, it always cheered her up to see yet more Christian churches appearing every time she visited.
Yumie, of course, never focused on the churches. She saw only the shrines and temples, the strong heresy and devil-worship that permeated the land and the culture; whenever Yumiko passed one, she could feel the nagging tug in the back of her mind. Go on, punish the heretics. It's our sacred duty. Take them down.
It occurred to her that the voice was in Japanese. She hadn't noticed that before. Or perhaps it had been in Italian before, and she'd just never paid atention? Yumiko tried to think about that as she passed an elegant little building labeled the Hikawa Shrine. With a little concentration, the voice in her mind would grudgingly quiet down.
With her attention thus focused, though, she didn't notice the blond girl dashing towards her until the girl crashed headlong into her, nearly knocking her glasses off.
"Gomen nasai!" exclaimed the blonde as she got up and brushed herself off. Her clothes had a rather cute rabbit motif. She held out a hand to help Yumiko up. "Daijoubu desu ka?"
"I'm all right, arigato," replied Yumiko, accepting the outstretched hand. "You ought to be more careful next time."
"Eheheh. That's what everybody says . . . But I really wanted to be on time! Rei-chan always yells at me when I'm late."
"Where are you going?"
The blonde grinned sheepishly. Her hair was really in a most unusual style - buns and pigtails. "Right there," she explained, pointing at the shrine just down the road. "Gomen, but I really gotta go . . ."
"It's all right. God go with you," said Yumiko with a smile. The blonde grinned back, then dashed off.
---
In a dark laboratory, a man in a white coat whose glasses shone out of his impossibly-darkly shadowed face began to talk as a roll of footage that had been played in every previous episode was put back in. "Kaorinite-kun," he said in a dark voice.
"Yes, Professor?" asked the buxom red-haired woman who had suddenly appeared in the only well-lit spot in the entire laboratory, wearing a lab coat that wasn't really fooling anyone.
"We must find the pure hearts of . . ."
"Professor?"
"Yes?" asked the man darkly.
"You've told me that every episode so far. I get it. We're searching for people with pure hearts because in three of them are the talismans which will be used to form the Holy Grail and take over the world."
"Excellent recap, Kaorinite-kun," said the man with a dark laugh. "A little faster than I would have liked, but quite promising. Now--"
"Yes, I've found the next target."
"Perfect," cackled the man darkly. "Let's get this party started."
Kaorinite rolled his eyes when the professor wasn't looking, but took the finished daimon egg and teleported away, leaving her coat to fall to the floor. She wasn't sure why he'd told her to do that - maybe because the lab coat might link observers back to his career. Yes, of course, that was probably it.
---
Yumie had had quite enough. Her alter ego was letting these heretics go completely unchecked. A few nice, quick beheadings would do them some good, but what had Yumiko finally decided to do? Go up and talk to them. As if that would help.
So Yumiko had to deal with a fuming berserker in the back of her head as she walked up the steps of the Hikawa Shrine in search of that young and no doubt impressionable girl. She had seemed quite nice - just the type to accept the love of Christ into her life.
It really was a rather beautiful place, she reflected as she crossed the stone courtyard. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to be around . . .
Suddenly Yumiko heard a wail from inside the shrine.
Between her "someone's in trouble! I have to help!" impulse and Yumie's "there will be fighting! I have to go join in!" impulse, the young nun reached for the door . . .
---
"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!" sobbed Tsukino Usagi. "Rei-chan, you're so mean to me!"
"If you weren't so stupid, Usagi, I wouldn't have to be mean!" snapped Hino Rei in return.
The other three girls around the table - Kino Makoto, Aino Minako, and Mizuno Ami - sighed and momentarily gave up on studying; Ami started pulling paper out of the range of the waterworks.
"Girls, please!" exclaimed the small black cat on the table, leaping over to quell the fighting. "How can you expect to be an effective team if you can't stop fighting amongst--"
A shriek from outside cut them off. Even Usagi stopped wailing as her own "someone's in trouble!" impulse kicked in, and the five abandoned their studies to run outside.
---
"Portuu-chan!" chirrupped the monster that had, a few minutes earlier, been the shrine door. It looked somewhat like a green-skinned woman in an extremely eccentric (and in places very immodest) outfit. "Let me see your pure heart!"
Yumiko stepped backward, eyes widening. Let me out! exclaimed Yumie inside her. Let me kill this creature of Hell!
"I don't want to kill . . ." whimpered Yumiko as she backed up further.
---
The girls burst out the open doorway to see the pretty young nun backed up against a tree by a daimon.
"That's the person I just met for the first time today that I've never seen before this episode!" exclaimed a distressed Usagi. "We can't let it get her!"
"Henshin yo, minna-chan!" Luna ordered.
"Mercury Star Power, Make Up!"
"Mars Star Power, Make Up!"
"Jupiter Star Power, Make Up!"
"Venus Star Power, Make Up!"
"Moon Cosmic Power, Make Up!"
Five minutes of gorgeous and varied stock footage later, the Sailor Senshi were ready to go.
---
Yumiko barely registered the bright flashes of light coming from the front of the shrine as Portuu-chan lifted her skirt to reveal a black star on her upper thigh. "Now we'll see your pure heart!" she cackled as a beam of darkness shot from the star to hit Yumiko's chest.
The pretty nun screamed until a glittering rose-colored crystal emerged from the point of the beam's target, tintinnabulating softly. Then she slumped to the ground, unconscious.
Portuu-chan hopped over to the fallen form and picked up the many-pointed crystal, then looked up at the trees, searching for the one in which Kaorinite sat. The glamorous redhead in question leapt down from her tree to examine the crystal.
"This woman's heart is amazingly pure," she murmured as she studied it. "It's almost as if there is no evil in her whatsoever . . . but nor does she have a Talisman."
"Stop right there!"
Portuu-chan and Kaorinite looked sharply up to see their familiar nemeses - the Sailor Senshi, with Sailor Moon in the lead.
"Stealing the heart of a young woman who only wants to spread the love of God around? That's despicable! I won't permit it! Ai to seigi no, sailor bishoujo senshi, Sailor Moon! Tsuki ni kawatte, oshioki yo!" she declared.
"Yes, yes, I know who you are," sighed Kaorinite. "Portuu-chan! Get rid of them." Never mind that the last eight hundred daimons had been easily dispatched by these girls - Kaorinite didn't feel like sticking around. Besides, Red Dwarf was about to come on.
Keeping all of her clothes this time, the redhead teleported away.
"Portuu-chan!" laughed the daimon, tossing the heart crystal into a bucket attached to her hip (don't ask) and charging at the short-skirted girls, who scattered.
"Sparkling Wide--" began Sailor Jupiter, a disk of concentrated lightning forming in her hands.
"No, stop!" interrupted Sailor Mercury. "You can't attack her while she has the heart crystal! What if it breaks?"
"Well, then, how are we supposed to stop her?" demanded Sailor Venus as she backflipped out of the way of a giant vine that Portuu-chan had just shot from her arm (really, don't ask).
Right on cue, a gust of wind blew a shower of rose petals across the screen.
"Oh, no, not them again," groaned Sailor Mars, glaring in the direction of the most dramatic lighting, where two new sailors stood.
"Invited by a new age, I'm the magnificent soldier, Sailor Uranus!" declared the tall young woman with pale blonde hair and piercing blue eyes who had a penchant for dressing in suits, was commonly mistaken for a guy, and was amazingly nifty with a sword.
"Invited by a new age, I'm the elegant soldier, Sailor Neptune!" added the slightly shorter young woman with absolutely no ironic similarities to anyone in the Hellsing Organization.
"World Sha--" began Sailor Uranus, also aiming for the daimon as the earth shuddered around her and a globe of golden light appeared between her palms.
"No, stop!" shouted Sailor Moon, jumping in between the daimon and the attack. "You'll destroy that woman's pure heart! Haven't we been through this enough yet?"
"Suit yourselves," replied Sailor Neptune. "We've got . . . better things to do." She winked at Uranus, who grinned back at her as the pair turned and exited via the Impossibly High Sailor Senshi Super-Jump.
"Now what?" asked Sailor Jupiter after a moment.
Then they were all tied up by strings of Christmas lights, which had erupted from Portuu-chan's solar plexus (did I say you could ask yet? No? Good. Then don't).
"Mercury, think of something!" berated Jupiter as she and the others struggled against the lights.
"I'm trying . . . I . . . wait, I've got it!"
"C'mon, tell us!" Venus pressed.
"We all wait here until Tuxedo Kamen appears and severes the Christmas lights with one of his roses. Then I run up and grab the heart crystal really quickly, and then Sailor Moon does her ultimate attack!"
"Great plan, Mercury!" enthused Sailor Moon. "What would we do without you?"
---
Even if you buy this whole "signal got trapped in space" theory, typed Mamoru into the Physics of Star Trek chat room, do you really expect that all of the little bits and pieces would get lost in such a regular pattern that it comes out as consistent damage on the cellular level?
Radioactive decay is a similar consistent sequence, came the reply from the user AngelOfDeath1942 a moment later. Half of the particles of a given substance will decay over a certain length of time, as surely as if they'd agreed about it with each other. Why couldn't these particles work under a similar pattern?
It was the most intelligent conversation Mamoru had had in years. When his clothing shifted into a jet-black tuxedo with a long cape and mask - the automatic transformation that happened whenever Usagi was in trouble - he didn't even notice.
---
Portuu-chan was giggling to herself, and the Sailor Senshi struggling in vain against their blinking bonds, when suddenly the daimon felt a sharp pain in her stomach. She looked down. Her last sight was that of blood seeping across the chartreuse front of her costume from around a silver blade before everything went black.
The sailors hadn't been paying much attention to the daimon, but when the strands of lights around them abruptly relaxed, they looked up to see a stunned-looking Portuu-chan collapse.
The nun pulled her katana out of the daimon corpse, which transfigured back into a door; an oversized whitish egg popped out of the door and broke apart.
---
A posessed door, thought Yumie. Well, that's new. Then she looked up at the girls who had been fighting this thing. They looked a bit young for the job - though, to be fair, she'd been demon-slashing at six - but they'd managed not to get killed or even seriously hurt. Around Yumie, that was impressive.
"Ano . . ." began the blonde with the wacky hairstyle, approaching her timidly. "Daijoubu desu ka?"
Something seemed familiar about that, but Yumie didn't press the issue. "I have God's justice on my side. The unrighteous shall suffer in the eternal fire."
"Sailor Moon . . ." began the girl in the red with the high heels. "Something's very wrong here. She still doesn't have her pure heart back!"
Sure enough, the elegant little crystal still tinkled on the no-longer-posessed door.
"Theoretically, she shouldn't be able to move!" added the blue-haired girl. "Be on your guard!"
"Oh, come on, minna-chan! She's this very sweet and nice nun. What could be wrong?"
"Mercury's right," said a new voice, and Yumie looked down to see . . . a talking black animal with red eyes.
---
When the nun lunged at Luna, brandishing her katana and shouting "Tougen Battou Jai Ryuu! Ama Zan!", Sailor Moon had to admit that something had changed.
"Love-Me Chain!" cried Sailor Venus, throwing the line of golden heart-shaped links around the nun. It caught her just in time; the katana sliced through the air just in front of Luna's neck.
Jupiter and Mars quickly grabbed the chain to help Venus, as the struggling woman was proving a challenge to hold. Undaunted, Sailor Moon walked up to face her. "Please, tell me what's wrong!" she pleaded. "You're a kind person, I know. Why are you doing this?"
---
"Kind? Don't make me laugh," snapped Yumie. "You're probably thinking of the wimp who shares my body."
"A split personality?" wondered the girl in blue. But Yumie wasn't listening; she'd suddenly noticed something. The 'wimp' didn't seem to be around. There was no quiet voice, not even the feeling of another person in the back of her mind. On top of that, her glasses were still perched on her face.
Yumiko was gone.
"All right," seethed the berserker, "what did that fiend do?"
"She took this from you," replied the girl with the weird hair - Sailor Moon? - as she held up a glittering blood-colored crystal made of a mass of tiny points.
That's Yumiko? The burden of my life, the gnat who tries to play conscience when I'm doing my job, the little voice that holds me back - that's her? But that means . . .
"It's the crystal of your pure heart."
My pure heart? No. HER pure heart.
The wording reminded Yumie of something. She couldn't put her finger on it, but it felt important . . . and then she had it. "Matteo 5:8," she murmured in Italian.
Beati quelli che hanno il cuore puro, perché vedranno Dio.
Oh.
"You can take it back," Sailor Moon was saying. "It'll just melt right back into your heart and you'll be all right again. Here." She held it out.
Yumie closed her eyes and leaned forward, pulling slightly against the chain. Even through her eyelids she could see the warm rosy glow.
---
The melodious tones of Moonlight Densetsu alerted Father Renaldo, who picked up his cellular phone, glanced at the caller ID, and pressed a button. "Yes, Father Maxwell?"
"We're having a little dinner to welcome Yumiko back. Can you come down and help with the cooking?"
"I'll be right there." Renaldo hung up and turned back to his computer. Sorry, I have to go, he typed in the AIM window. I'll talk to you later.
See you, replied the user MineralGirl90. And don't forget to think about meeting up with me some time soon!
Will do. Bye! typed Renaldo, and signed off. He'd heard horror stories about online contacts, but if her photo was authentic, this woman was quite a babe; red hair, almost crystalline amethyst eyes, and the white lab coat couldn't hide her figure.
Amazing, the people you could meet on the Red Dwarf slash community.
---
~Fin.
Glossary:
Gomen nasai = I'm very sorry (Gomen = Sorry)
Daijoubu desu ka? = Are you all right?
Arigato = Thank you
Ai to seigi no, sailor bishoujo senshi, Sailor Moon! Tsuki ni kawatte, oshioki yo! = For love and justice, I'm the pretty suited sailor soldier Sailor Moon! In the name of the moon, I'll punish you!
Portuu-chan is of course the Flench equivalent of "porte" (door). (Flench = Japanese-mangled French, just as Engrish = Japanese-mispronounced English)
And of course, last names and first names get switched (thus Takagi Yumiko).
Henshin yo, minna-chan! = Transform, everybody!
Sailor Senshi is, obviously, Sailor Soldiers.
Tuxedo Kamen = Tuxedo Mask
Tougen battou jai ryuu! Ama zan! = Island-plain drawn sword style: Heaven Mountain (see Cross Fire #2)
And, of course, the Italian:
Beati quelli che hanno il cuore puro, perché vedranno Dio = Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Fandom: Hellsing, Sailor Moon
Genre: Comedy, light drama
Words: ~2700
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Hellsing is the creation of Kōta Hirano. Sailor Moon is likewise the creation of Naoko Takeuchi. I make references to other shows; they're not mine either. Characters used without permission - but with love (and, more importantly from a legal standpoint, without profit).
Notes: Hellsing/Sailor Moon crossover as part of
hellsingreviews's 100th-review celebration. Takes place during the SMS series of the anime.The woman with two hearts! Blessed are the pure
For Takagi Yumiko, being back in Tokyo was like stepping back in time. She hadn't returned to her native country for more than a week at a time since her move to Vatican City as a child; the Church had heard of considerable unholy activity there, but somebody always seemed to get to it before Section XIII could mobilize, so they had just given up. It felt almost unnatural to speak Japanese again.
Still, it always cheered her up to see yet more Christian churches appearing every time she visited.
Yumie, of course, never focused on the churches. She saw only the shrines and temples, the strong heresy and devil-worship that permeated the land and the culture; whenever Yumiko passed one, she could feel the nagging tug in the back of her mind. Go on, punish the heretics. It's our sacred duty. Take them down.
It occurred to her that the voice was in Japanese. She hadn't noticed that before. Or perhaps it had been in Italian before, and she'd just never paid atention? Yumiko tried to think about that as she passed an elegant little building labeled the Hikawa Shrine. With a little concentration, the voice in her mind would grudgingly quiet down.
With her attention thus focused, though, she didn't notice the blond girl dashing towards her until the girl crashed headlong into her, nearly knocking her glasses off.
"Gomen nasai!" exclaimed the blonde as she got up and brushed herself off. Her clothes had a rather cute rabbit motif. She held out a hand to help Yumiko up. "Daijoubu desu ka?"
"I'm all right, arigato," replied Yumiko, accepting the outstretched hand. "You ought to be more careful next time."
"Eheheh. That's what everybody says . . . But I really wanted to be on time! Rei-chan always yells at me when I'm late."
"Where are you going?"
The blonde grinned sheepishly. Her hair was really in a most unusual style - buns and pigtails. "Right there," she explained, pointing at the shrine just down the road. "Gomen, but I really gotta go . . ."
"It's all right. God go with you," said Yumiko with a smile. The blonde grinned back, then dashed off.
---
In a dark laboratory, a man in a white coat whose glasses shone out of his impossibly-darkly shadowed face began to talk as a roll of footage that had been played in every previous episode was put back in. "Kaorinite-kun," he said in a dark voice.
"Yes, Professor?" asked the buxom red-haired woman who had suddenly appeared in the only well-lit spot in the entire laboratory, wearing a lab coat that wasn't really fooling anyone.
"We must find the pure hearts of . . ."
"Professor?"
"Yes?" asked the man darkly.
"You've told me that every episode so far. I get it. We're searching for people with pure hearts because in three of them are the talismans which will be used to form the Holy Grail and take over the world."
"Excellent recap, Kaorinite-kun," said the man with a dark laugh. "A little faster than I would have liked, but quite promising. Now--"
"Yes, I've found the next target."
"Perfect," cackled the man darkly. "Let's get this party started."
Kaorinite rolled his eyes when the professor wasn't looking, but took the finished daimon egg and teleported away, leaving her coat to fall to the floor. She wasn't sure why he'd told her to do that - maybe because the lab coat might link observers back to his career. Yes, of course, that was probably it.
---
Yumie had had quite enough. Her alter ego was letting these heretics go completely unchecked. A few nice, quick beheadings would do them some good, but what had Yumiko finally decided to do? Go up and talk to them. As if that would help.
So Yumiko had to deal with a fuming berserker in the back of her head as she walked up the steps of the Hikawa Shrine in search of that young and no doubt impressionable girl. She had seemed quite nice - just the type to accept the love of Christ into her life.
It really was a rather beautiful place, she reflected as she crossed the stone courtyard. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to be around . . .
Suddenly Yumiko heard a wail from inside the shrine.
Between her "someone's in trouble! I have to help!" impulse and Yumie's "there will be fighting! I have to go join in!" impulse, the young nun reached for the door . . .
---
"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!" sobbed Tsukino Usagi. "Rei-chan, you're so mean to me!"
"If you weren't so stupid, Usagi, I wouldn't have to be mean!" snapped Hino Rei in return.
The other three girls around the table - Kino Makoto, Aino Minako, and Mizuno Ami - sighed and momentarily gave up on studying; Ami started pulling paper out of the range of the waterworks.
"Girls, please!" exclaimed the small black cat on the table, leaping over to quell the fighting. "How can you expect to be an effective team if you can't stop fighting amongst--"
A shriek from outside cut them off. Even Usagi stopped wailing as her own "someone's in trouble!" impulse kicked in, and the five abandoned their studies to run outside.
---
"Portuu-chan!" chirrupped the monster that had, a few minutes earlier, been the shrine door. It looked somewhat like a green-skinned woman in an extremely eccentric (and in places very immodest) outfit. "Let me see your pure heart!"
Yumiko stepped backward, eyes widening. Let me out! exclaimed Yumie inside her. Let me kill this creature of Hell!
"I don't want to kill . . ." whimpered Yumiko as she backed up further.
---
The girls burst out the open doorway to see the pretty young nun backed up against a tree by a daimon.
"That's the person I just met for the first time today that I've never seen before this episode!" exclaimed a distressed Usagi. "We can't let it get her!"
"Henshin yo, minna-chan!" Luna ordered.
"Mercury Star Power, Make Up!"
"Mars Star Power, Make Up!"
"Jupiter Star Power, Make Up!"
"Venus Star Power, Make Up!"
"Moon Cosmic Power, Make Up!"
Five minutes of gorgeous and varied stock footage later, the Sailor Senshi were ready to go.
---
Yumiko barely registered the bright flashes of light coming from the front of the shrine as Portuu-chan lifted her skirt to reveal a black star on her upper thigh. "Now we'll see your pure heart!" she cackled as a beam of darkness shot from the star to hit Yumiko's chest.
The pretty nun screamed until a glittering rose-colored crystal emerged from the point of the beam's target, tintinnabulating softly. Then she slumped to the ground, unconscious.
Portuu-chan hopped over to the fallen form and picked up the many-pointed crystal, then looked up at the trees, searching for the one in which Kaorinite sat. The glamorous redhead in question leapt down from her tree to examine the crystal.
"This woman's heart is amazingly pure," she murmured as she studied it. "It's almost as if there is no evil in her whatsoever . . . but nor does she have a Talisman."
"Stop right there!"
Portuu-chan and Kaorinite looked sharply up to see their familiar nemeses - the Sailor Senshi, with Sailor Moon in the lead.
"Stealing the heart of a young woman who only wants to spread the love of God around? That's despicable! I won't permit it! Ai to seigi no, sailor bishoujo senshi, Sailor Moon! Tsuki ni kawatte, oshioki yo!" she declared.
"Yes, yes, I know who you are," sighed Kaorinite. "Portuu-chan! Get rid of them." Never mind that the last eight hundred daimons had been easily dispatched by these girls - Kaorinite didn't feel like sticking around. Besides, Red Dwarf was about to come on.
Keeping all of her clothes this time, the redhead teleported away.
"Portuu-chan!" laughed the daimon, tossing the heart crystal into a bucket attached to her hip (don't ask) and charging at the short-skirted girls, who scattered.
"Sparkling Wide--" began Sailor Jupiter, a disk of concentrated lightning forming in her hands.
"No, stop!" interrupted Sailor Mercury. "You can't attack her while she has the heart crystal! What if it breaks?"
"Well, then, how are we supposed to stop her?" demanded Sailor Venus as she backflipped out of the way of a giant vine that Portuu-chan had just shot from her arm (really, don't ask).
Right on cue, a gust of wind blew a shower of rose petals across the screen.
"Oh, no, not them again," groaned Sailor Mars, glaring in the direction of the most dramatic lighting, where two new sailors stood.
"Invited by a new age, I'm the magnificent soldier, Sailor Uranus!" declared the tall young woman with pale blonde hair and piercing blue eyes who had a penchant for dressing in suits, was commonly mistaken for a guy, and was amazingly nifty with a sword.
"Invited by a new age, I'm the elegant soldier, Sailor Neptune!" added the slightly shorter young woman with absolutely no ironic similarities to anyone in the Hellsing Organization.
"World Sha--" began Sailor Uranus, also aiming for the daimon as the earth shuddered around her and a globe of golden light appeared between her palms.
"No, stop!" shouted Sailor Moon, jumping in between the daimon and the attack. "You'll destroy that woman's pure heart! Haven't we been through this enough yet?"
"Suit yourselves," replied Sailor Neptune. "We've got . . . better things to do." She winked at Uranus, who grinned back at her as the pair turned and exited via the Impossibly High Sailor Senshi Super-Jump.
"Now what?" asked Sailor Jupiter after a moment.
Then they were all tied up by strings of Christmas lights, which had erupted from Portuu-chan's solar plexus (did I say you could ask yet? No? Good. Then don't).
"Mercury, think of something!" berated Jupiter as she and the others struggled against the lights.
"I'm trying . . . I . . . wait, I've got it!"
"C'mon, tell us!" Venus pressed.
"We all wait here until Tuxedo Kamen appears and severes the Christmas lights with one of his roses. Then I run up and grab the heart crystal really quickly, and then Sailor Moon does her ultimate attack!"
"Great plan, Mercury!" enthused Sailor Moon. "What would we do without you?"
---
Even if you buy this whole "signal got trapped in space" theory, typed Mamoru into the Physics of Star Trek chat room, do you really expect that all of the little bits and pieces would get lost in such a regular pattern that it comes out as consistent damage on the cellular level?
Radioactive decay is a similar consistent sequence, came the reply from the user AngelOfDeath1942 a moment later. Half of the particles of a given substance will decay over a certain length of time, as surely as if they'd agreed about it with each other. Why couldn't these particles work under a similar pattern?
It was the most intelligent conversation Mamoru had had in years. When his clothing shifted into a jet-black tuxedo with a long cape and mask - the automatic transformation that happened whenever Usagi was in trouble - he didn't even notice.
---
Portuu-chan was giggling to herself, and the Sailor Senshi struggling in vain against their blinking bonds, when suddenly the daimon felt a sharp pain in her stomach. She looked down. Her last sight was that of blood seeping across the chartreuse front of her costume from around a silver blade before everything went black.
The sailors hadn't been paying much attention to the daimon, but when the strands of lights around them abruptly relaxed, they looked up to see a stunned-looking Portuu-chan collapse.
The nun pulled her katana out of the daimon corpse, which transfigured back into a door; an oversized whitish egg popped out of the door and broke apart.
---
A posessed door, thought Yumie. Well, that's new. Then she looked up at the girls who had been fighting this thing. They looked a bit young for the job - though, to be fair, she'd been demon-slashing at six - but they'd managed not to get killed or even seriously hurt. Around Yumie, that was impressive.
"Ano . . ." began the blonde with the wacky hairstyle, approaching her timidly. "Daijoubu desu ka?"
Something seemed familiar about that, but Yumie didn't press the issue. "I have God's justice on my side. The unrighteous shall suffer in the eternal fire."
"Sailor Moon . . ." began the girl in the red with the high heels. "Something's very wrong here. She still doesn't have her pure heart back!"
Sure enough, the elegant little crystal still tinkled on the no-longer-posessed door.
"Theoretically, she shouldn't be able to move!" added the blue-haired girl. "Be on your guard!"
"Oh, come on, minna-chan! She's this very sweet and nice nun. What could be wrong?"
"Mercury's right," said a new voice, and Yumie looked down to see . . . a talking black animal with red eyes.
---
When the nun lunged at Luna, brandishing her katana and shouting "Tougen Battou Jai Ryuu! Ama Zan!", Sailor Moon had to admit that something had changed.
"Love-Me Chain!" cried Sailor Venus, throwing the line of golden heart-shaped links around the nun. It caught her just in time; the katana sliced through the air just in front of Luna's neck.
Jupiter and Mars quickly grabbed the chain to help Venus, as the struggling woman was proving a challenge to hold. Undaunted, Sailor Moon walked up to face her. "Please, tell me what's wrong!" she pleaded. "You're a kind person, I know. Why are you doing this?"
---
"Kind? Don't make me laugh," snapped Yumie. "You're probably thinking of the wimp who shares my body."
"A split personality?" wondered the girl in blue. But Yumie wasn't listening; she'd suddenly noticed something. The 'wimp' didn't seem to be around. There was no quiet voice, not even the feeling of another person in the back of her mind. On top of that, her glasses were still perched on her face.
Yumiko was gone.
"All right," seethed the berserker, "what did that fiend do?"
"She took this from you," replied the girl with the weird hair - Sailor Moon? - as she held up a glittering blood-colored crystal made of a mass of tiny points.
That's Yumiko? The burden of my life, the gnat who tries to play conscience when I'm doing my job, the little voice that holds me back - that's her? But that means . . .
"It's the crystal of your pure heart."
My pure heart? No. HER pure heart.
The wording reminded Yumie of something. She couldn't put her finger on it, but it felt important . . . and then she had it. "Matteo 5:8," she murmured in Italian.
Beati quelli che hanno il cuore puro, perché vedranno Dio.
Oh.
"You can take it back," Sailor Moon was saying. "It'll just melt right back into your heart and you'll be all right again. Here." She held it out.
Yumie closed her eyes and leaned forward, pulling slightly against the chain. Even through her eyelids she could see the warm rosy glow.
---
The melodious tones of Moonlight Densetsu alerted Father Renaldo, who picked up his cellular phone, glanced at the caller ID, and pressed a button. "Yes, Father Maxwell?"
"We're having a little dinner to welcome Yumiko back. Can you come down and help with the cooking?"
"I'll be right there." Renaldo hung up and turned back to his computer. Sorry, I have to go, he typed in the AIM window. I'll talk to you later.
See you, replied the user MineralGirl90. And don't forget to think about meeting up with me some time soon!
Will do. Bye! typed Renaldo, and signed off. He'd heard horror stories about online contacts, but if her photo was authentic, this woman was quite a babe; red hair, almost crystalline amethyst eyes, and the white lab coat couldn't hide her figure.
Amazing, the people you could meet on the Red Dwarf slash community.
---
~Fin.
Glossary:
Gomen nasai = I'm very sorry (Gomen = Sorry)
Daijoubu desu ka? = Are you all right?
Arigato = Thank you
Ai to seigi no, sailor bishoujo senshi, Sailor Moon! Tsuki ni kawatte, oshioki yo! = For love and justice, I'm the pretty suited sailor soldier Sailor Moon! In the name of the moon, I'll punish you!
Portuu-chan is of course the Flench equivalent of "porte" (door). (Flench = Japanese-mangled French, just as Engrish = Japanese-mispronounced English)
And of course, last names and first names get switched (thus Takagi Yumiko).
Henshin yo, minna-chan! = Transform, everybody!
Sailor Senshi is, obviously, Sailor Soldiers.
Tuxedo Kamen = Tuxedo Mask
Tougen battou jai ryuu! Ama zan! = Island-plain drawn sword style: Heaven Mountain (see Cross Fire #2)
And, of course, the Italian:
Beati quelli che hanno il cuore puro, perché vedranno Dio = Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.