Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and its characters and settings belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Kitty, and Viz Video. Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon belongs to Takeuchi Naoko, Koudansha, TV Asahi, and Toei Douga, and DIC.

"Hey, Akane! Over here!!"

Akane jumped slightly. That had clearly been Ukyo. But why had the chef sounded so desperate?

Peering through the crowds, she had her answer. Ukyo wasn't the only one of their group who'd made it here before Akane… Tatewaki and Kodachi Kuno were standing next to the chef.

Akane pushed her way over to the trio. Apparently Tatewaki had somehow missed hearing Ukyo's cry, for as he caught sight of Akane his face lit up with surprised delight. He began to shift toward her, arms opening in preparation for an unwelcome welcoming embrace. "My fierce tigress, Akane TendURK!"

Kodachi twitched her ribbon, releasing it from the chokehold around her brother's neck. "Brother dear… you promised."

Tatewaki shot her a glare, but seemed unable to maintain his outrage under his sister's stern gaze. "Very well, let it not be said that the Blue Thunder's word is less than sacred. Akane Tendo, we must wait for a more private time to celebrate our passion."

Akane held back a gag. Barely. She turned to Ukyo and asked, "So have you been here long?"

"Got here as soon as the doors opened," Ukyo answered. Nowadays, when she had somewhere to go she tried to get there as early as possible. After all, the last time she'd taken her time over something, two other girls had gotten their claws into her fiancé before she could do anything about it.

"Brother dear and I arrived only a minute or so before you did, Akane," Kodachi added.

The sympathy Akane had been feeling for Ukyo lessened noticeably. So she'd only had to put up with the Kunos for a minute, huh? To the girl who'd seen enough roses — red AND black — to choke a floral shop, that was nothing.

Meanwhile, Kodachi had continued speaking. "I had just been about to ask this question when you arrived, Akane. Pray tell, what exactly are we doing this for?"

Akane gaped. Ukyo gaped. Tatewaki gazed longingly at Akane, but as she was gaping at Kodachi, this didn't fray her limited patience any further.

Ukyo was the first to recover. "If you don't know why you're here, WHY are you here?"

Kodachi frowned slightly. "Ranma darling told me of this event and asked for my help." She gestured at the milling throngs of people around them, all of who were dressed in costumes that fit a general trend. "The individual dressed in the best and most creative costume in the theme of Sailor Moon will receive copies of the entire manga series, signed by the artist herself. Ranma dearest asked me," she glanced to her brother, dressed to the hilt in a Tuxedo Mask outfit, grimaced slightly, and amended, "us, to come up with costumes, attend, and try to win that prize for him."

"If you knew all that, then what was your question for?" This was Akane.

"Well, Akane, it seems most unlikely that Ranma darling's taste runs to such doggerel as this silly shoujo series," Kodachi replied. "Why does he want autographed Sailor Moon manga anyway?"

"Oh. Nabiki put him up to it. My sister likes to collect manga, and an entire autographed set of Sailor Moon is something she'd move heaven and earth to get." Or just tell Ranma that if he didn't try his best to get it for her, she'd call in his debt, Akane thought sourly, thinking back to how desperate he had been when he asked her to help him out with this.

"And why is he not able to be here himself?" Kuno demanded. "If the mighty Blue Thunder can swallow his dignity enough to garb himself in such ridiculous clothing, surely one as base as Saotome should have no difficultOUCH!"

Kodachi smiled sweetly and stepped off her brother's foot. "Yes, why wasn't Ranma darling able to attend?"

'Think fast, Akane, think fast.' The reason he'd given Akane had been the fact that there were certain to be plenty of Sailor Moon fangirls who'd brought along their very own 'moon cats'. But Akane didn't want to talk about Ranma's phobia behind his back like that. At the very least, she didn't want to remind Kuno of it and risk him stupidly trying that tactic against Ranma again. ONE moment of sheer embarrassment in front of the entire student body had been enough for her, thank you very much!

Ukyo answered while Akane was still trying to come up with something. "After Nabiki heard about him getting other people to help out, she told him to let us handle it; she had something else for him to take care of personally." Not bad for a spur of the moment invention, the chef thought smugly. Seeking to change the subject, she asked, "Why didn't he explain any of this to you? Weren't you curious at all?"

"It was not the fiend Saotome," Kuno winced as his sister's heel crushed his instep again, "but rather the pigtailed goddess who enlisted my aid. And I fear I was so overcome by her beauty that my intelligence quite left me at the time. I can only remember the barest details of what she told me."

Kodachi made a moue of discontentment. "As to my case, he may have given me the details of which you have spoken. I simply cannot recall. For when dearest Ranma began explaining the rules regarding costuming, that it was permitted to create original characters in the general theme or style of the Sailor Moon series, I was struck with an epiphany! A revelation! I was overcome with a magnificent inspiration for the character that I would emulate. And so caught up was I in this flood of creative genius, that when I became aware of the world around me again, darling Ranma had already left." She sighed forlornly. "The poor dear was probably slighted by my sudden inattention. No matter, when I present him with the prize it will surely atone for my discourtesy."

"So you went original character too, huh?" Ukyo, who had little familiarity with Sailor Moon past the Beryl story arc, had erroneously pegged Kodachi as one of the Witches Five. "Who are you supposed to be?"

Kodachi twirled in a quick pirouette. She was dressed in a modified fuku, with ribbons that streamed out from the shoulders and behind her, like wings. They fluttered with her movement, nearly poking a passing Makoto-clone in the eye. "Behold… Sailor Rose! The outrider of the Sailor Starriors!"

"Sailor… Starriors?" Akane and Ukyo asked, uncertain where that had come from.

"Indeed. Of the Star Kingdom; ancient rivals of the Moon Kingdom, yet not truly their enemies. A kingdom free from the totalitarian regime of Serenity. A kingdom dedicated to peace and justice through personal choice, not the 'benevolent tyrant' enslaving others' will."

"Um, you know, knocking the artist's original concept of the Moon Kingdom like that might not be the best way to win," Akane pointed out.

"It was my inspiration and I'm sticking with it," Kodachi said flatly.

'Oh well, at least she seems like she's really getting into the role, and it's a BIG improvement over her usual personality. No skin off my nose,' Akane thought. She turned to Ukyo, who was dressed in a purple and grey military outfit. It was a truly bizarre sight, as far as the youngest Tendo was concerned — Ukyo's giant spatula was nowhere to be seen. Instead, there was a rapier at her side. Oh, and the chef was also disguised as a man, but that didn't strike anyone as particularly odd. "Who are you supposed to be, Ukyo?"

"You know how there were these four Guardians that Beryl corrupted, right?" Ukyo had learned this in a quick crash course on Sailor Moon after Ranma had come to her and asked for her help. "Jadeite, Nephrite, Zoicite, and Kunzite? Well, I'm thinking those were the Guardians of the inner Solar System and there were four others — the outer Guardians who fell in combat, but were never corrupted. Diamond, Ruby, Sapphire, and Opal… they were a lot stronger than those guys that lost themselves to Beryl." Ukyo drew herself up in her idea of a Moon Martial Pose of Honor. "I'm Diamond."

Akane sighed slightly. "I wanted to be an original character, too. But… the costume didn't turn out quite right…" And by the time she'd swallowed enough pride to ask Kasumi for help, rather than sewing it all herself, there hadn't been enough time left for any option save one.

"Don't feel bad, Akane. So far you're the best Ami look-alike I've seen here," Ukyo said.

"Yeah, yeah, I get that a lot," she muttered. P-chan bweee'd sympathetically from his position in the crook of her arm. She patted him on the head, being careful not to dislodge the fuzzy black cat ears or crescent moon that Kasumi had affixed there.

"Nice moon cat," Ukyo said with a barely suppressed smirk. Then, as a tidbit from the later series bobbed up in her memory, the chef asked, "Should I call her 'Luna-P'?"

P-chan gave Ukyo a baleful glare. Well, as baleful a glare as a cute li'l black piglet dressed up as a moon cat can give. Which isn't very baleful at all, when you get right down to it.

"Are we waiting for anyone else?" Kodachi asked, once again berating herself for how she'd zoned out when Ranma darling had been explaining the situation to her. Why ever had she felt such a strong connection to the idea of Sailor Rose anyway?

"Yes, Ranma said he'd get Shampoo to help, and Mousse too, if he could," Akane answered.

"I wonder how much longer it'll take them to get here… Oh. My. God."

Akane, Kodachi, and Tatewaki turned to follow the direction of Ukyo's stare. As one the girls broke out in hysterical laughter, while Kuno simply blanched.

Mousse trudged over, bearing their humor with ill-concealed dudgeon. "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, why don't you. You think this was MY idea?! HELL, NO!! It was that dried-up old mummy's fault!"

Shampoo, walking beside him in cat form, temporarily bleached white and with a crescent moon dyed on her forehead, continued to make noises suspiciously akin to laughter. She'd been doing so ever since they left the Nekohanten. Mousse chose to interpret these as cries of sympathy.

"But… but… a Minako costume, Mousse?!" Ukyo managed to gasp.

"Hey, at least somebody else MADE me cross-dress. What's your excuse?" Mousse retorted nastily. "The old ghoul thought it would be just too cute, what with Minako's Venus Love-Me-Chain and my usual Hidden Weapons chain attacks." And so the Chinese boy had hidden his black hair under a blonde wig, and exchanged his robes for a Sailor Venus fuku with some strategic padding. Mousse tried not to think about it, or the memory of Cologne using a weak, tightly focused chi attack to remove the hair from his legs in one flash of humiliation. At least his skirt was a few inches longer than standard Senshi issue. "I can't believe I'm doing this for Ranma," he muttered grimly.

Ukyo snorted. "Yeah, right. If I know you… and I do… the reason you're doing this is either because Shampoo asked you to, or her great-granny told you to. NOT for Ranma honey's sake." The cat at Mousse's side nodded, still snickering audibly.

"Whatever," the Mistress of Love and Hidden Weapons said disgustedly. "This is just like Saotome too, leaving us to do his dirty work for him while he's off somewhere else."

"Look on the bright side, Mousse," Akane said sympathetically. "Would you really want Ranma to see you dressed up like that?"

Mousse blanched visibly and made a mental U-turn. "Good point. I hope he doesn't finish whatever other task Nabiki had for him and show up here after all."

Ukyo frowned in puzzlement. Had Shampoo somehow given Mousse the same story to explain Ranchan's absence as the chef had come up with to feed to the Kunos? Oh well, she thought with a shrug, she saw bigger coincidences than that at least once a week.

"So right now Akane, Ukyo, Shampoo, Mousse, the Kunos, and, *ahem*, P-chan, are occupied for the next six hours. You even got Kasumi interested enough in the event to go along and watch. I am impressed, Ranma," Nabiki said archly. "You managed to get all your fiancées and rivals elsewhere, working together to accomplish something for you, while you sit back and do nothing. A very impressive piece of manipulation if I do say so myself."

"Hey, I'm learning from the mistress," Ranma said with an especially cocky grin. "Besides, you got one part of that wrong."

"Oh, really? And what part would that be, Saotome?" the middle Tendo queried.

"The part about me wasting this opportunity by sitting back and doing nothing," he replied. "That wasn't what I was planning at all. Of course, if that's really what you want…"

"Less talk," Nabiki growled throatily, grabbing his shirt and pulling him toward her, "and more action." And after that, though things weren't exactly quiet, there WAS a complete absence of speech for quite some time.

Author’s notes: Blame Christopher Angel. I recently read an untitled Ranma-Sailor Moon crossover on his page that blew the usual conventions for such right out of the water. That got me started thinking on other very-seldom-used ways to cross these series, and behold the result.

Kudos to you if you recognized the sources of ‘Diamond’ and ‘Sailor Rose’. For those who didn’t, they come from Children of Fire by John Biles, and Featherbrite’s Tale by Gregg Sharpe.

As always, you can contact me at aondehafka@hotmail.com

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Last revision: January 7, 2006