The End of the Beginning. {1/3}
A Sailor Moon fanfic by Tim Nolan.
e-mail: nomad@cyberverse.com
Please see the comments following the story.
author's notes
1. Warning! There is a small amount of cursing in this story.
2. This story is very much tied in with my previous works.
They should be read in the following order.
Awakening, part 1
Awakening, part 2
Obligations
The End of the Beginning
3. The first part of the prologue happens right after the
ending of 'Obligations'. The second part of the prologue
happens several months after that. The rest of this
story happens almost two years after 'Obligations.'
The Inner Senshi are seventeen and soon to be eighteen.
4. This story is not following the Japanese school system
for when classes are in session.
5. The continuity does not include the second part of
'Stars', the fifth season of Sailor Moon in Japan.
The story presented in 'Obligations' happens shortly
after the Nephrenia arc of 'Stars', but after that,
the anime goes one way and I go another.
6. There are ideas and concepts from the manga involved in
in these stories even though I do generally follow the
anime storyline for the most part.
7. quick translations of Japanese terms
ojii-san : grandfather
hime-chan : princess
onee-san : older sister
***
The End of the Beginning.
There's no time for us
There's no place for us
What is this thing that fills our dreams
yet slips away from us?
There's no chance for us
It's all decided for us
This world has only one sweet moment
set aside for us.
Who wants to live forever?
-Queen, from 'Who Wants to Live Forever?'
Prologue.
Was it the right decision? He considered the question
as his brother cast off the guise he had assumed for this
'visit', as their conversation would have seemed to another
observer, and vanished. His other siblings had only recently
begun experimenting with taking human form, something that
he had been doing for a long time. His experience at it let
him conceal what he had been doing from the others.
The room he floated in was small and dimly lit, with
a cold, bare, stone floor and walls. Several candles provided
the illumination but the flames that topped them didn't
flicker. The roof and a few dilapidated benches were the only
things made of wood until he waved his hand slightly,
dispelling the illusion below him. A bed appeared, one as
old and worn as the benches. He put the staff that was
resting across his knees down next to the occupant and
considered his problems and his solutions.
A long, long time ago, even for them, a cry in the
darkness had made them aware of each other and that it was
possible to communicate. One of their sisters was dying, it
turned out, and there was nothing they could do to help
her. The best they could do was to tell her she would
always be remembered for giving them this wonderful gift.
He hadn't fully agreed with his sibling, however. There
had to be something he could do, and it took some time for
his sister to actually die. She had tried not to show that
it hurt, but the cries of pain she occasionally let slip
still haunted him even now. The problem came from the fact
that her corporeal body was being disrupted by it's
proximity to her largest brother.
Without that link to the physical world, she was
fading away. There was no way for the others to take her
place, or to share theirs with her. He seemingly ignored
the others most of the time, garnering a reputation for
being slow and deliberate as he pondered this problem. In
truth, he had been devoting his time to searching for
something he could do to help her. His solution may not
have been elegant, but it had almost been in time.
The others were still fascinated by their newly
found ability to converse among themselves, and weren't
aware of what he was going to do. It was just as well, he
later realized. They would have tried to stop him, just on
the basis of the risk that he was about to take.
His sister's fate had proved that they could die. Her
spirit, the essence that made her alive, was fading. She
could no longer keep it safe, but if someone else couldn't,
what if something else could? The danger came from the fact
that he was as tied to his body as much as the others. However,
if his sister's essence could be separated from her physical
self, shouldn't his be able to be separated as well?
He settled his thoughts and gently pushed all but a
tiny fraction of himself free of the physical, leaving that
portion as an anchor. The ease of it astounded him, and
resolving to study this more in the future, he willed
himself to his sister's remains. They had already started
to cool, with only the centers of the four largest pieces
still being warm. He could now see that most of her was
lost, but not everything. Some of her essence still remained,
along with most of her power, and he gathered it together
to work with.
Choosing those four pieces due to their size, he bound
some of her energy and an equal portion of her spirit into
each one. Those pieces will survive a long, long time. This
way, part of what was left of her would be in her former
place if she was somehow able to return, or they found a
way to return her to life.
The other four he chose, however, were a tiny fraction
of the size of the others even though they had as much power.
These four he brought with him as he returned to his body,
and was grateful that he was actually able to make it back.
There had been no way to test his theory.
It was only later when he and the others who were the
four furthest out from the center began their watch upon the
outer reaches of the system that he realized what those four
items could be used for. The avatars of those four were a
part of that watch as well, and he fashioned three of the
four objects into tools for them to use called talismans.
The ringed one declined the use of one of them for his
avatar, as he had a premonition that it could be unwise.
Therefore, the other three avatars received the
talismans he had fashioned into items out of their legends
since the avatars still didn't know who they received their
power from. The fourth, however, he fashioned into a
contingency if the ringed one's fears were not groundless.
It would be able to call upon not only the power that was
inherent to it, but also that of the three talismans and
the four other reserves of power. If it ever came to it,
the avatars would be even more prepared for any possible
emergency.
" I was a fool," he whispered, looking down on the
woman on the bed. That same power had drawn one group of
enemies, and would probably bring more. Her first real
suffering on his behalf, aside from the drawbacks to her
long life, had come about because during the attack by
those enemies, she stopped time to give two other avatars
the opportunity to finish their mission. He had known what
was going through her mind as she slammed shut the gates
of time at the cost of her life.
She was, in her view, making amends for what she had
done to them. She knew that they had the other two talismans,
but she didn't have any idea of how to remove their heart
crystals in order to gain access to the talismans. The
Queen's sacrifice long ago had bound the items to their
souls as she sent them forward in time.
Their enemies, however, knew how. By forcibly
manifesting the souls of their victims in the shape of
the crystalline constructs they called heart crystals,
those enemies were searching for the talismans. His avatar
knew that it would mean their deaths, but she had awakened
the other two and sent them into battle. It was the only
way to get the talismans.
One part of her, the practical side that had grown
cold and detached over the years, dismissed it as an
acceptable loss. They would fight on until they were
defeated, and then the talismans would be obtained. The
other part of her, the warm side that was usually
subordinate to the other, finally rebelled, gained the
upper hand, and she gave up her life so that they might
live.
He had brought her back from the brink of death,
employing his own control over time to save her. The
evolutionary path of the humans never intended them to
live more than a few score orbits of their homeworld. He
didn't have the luxury of replacing avatars like the
others. It took most of a human lifetime to train her,
and she had a natural ability far beyond any of the
others he had considered. No, he would only have one
avatar, and had even shown her how to fully make use
of her talisman. The others hadn't even done that,
preferring to pass the talismans down from avatar to
avatar without their knowing the true power the devices
held.
In part, it was his way of atoning for all he had
done to her. She had realized and accepted the dangers
she would face and the pain she would bear, and had
agreed to represent him. What he was about to do was
another part of his atonement. This would be the second
time he had done this, and he would do it again. He owed
her that much, at least. She was his first line of defense
against an encroachment upon the realm of time that he had
first glimpsed when he tried to save his sister.
He reached into himself and took a little of his
own life, using it to restore her to full health like he
had done before. He had kept her from truly dying these
two times recently and brought her back here instead,
although it was trickier this last time. The first time
she had merely stopped the flow of time. He had barely
been able to find her this time amid all the strange
convolutions in the fabric of time around her.
He knew what she had done and took a teacher's delight
in the progress of a student and her technical skill. The
reason why she had done it amazed him. He still couldn't
imagine what it would be like to have that same depth of
feeling, or to have that much capacity to care so much
about the welfare of another.
" Welcome back, child," he softly said to her and
sank into the floor as she opened her eyes.
***********************************************
Ten, twenty, thirty, forty thousand, he finished
counting to himself as he walked away and began to
calculate his tip from this bill and how much he would
have to give to the busboy. This job at a very trendy,
very upper-scale steak house was a godsend for his bank
account even if it was only part time, since he filled in
for anyone who was sick.
" Here you go," he said to the cashier, letting the
older man tabulate the totals on the computer and make the
change. These were probably the last customers of the night,
so after returning the change to the table he ducked into
the kitchen to get a cup of decaf coffee and review his
finances.
He loved her dearly, but Usagi had literally been
eating up his savings a little while ago. His last real
contact in the modeling business had retired a few months
earlier, and the jobs that had once supplemented his
other income were gone. He couldn't condone taking her
over to Mako-chan's too many times, even if the tall
girl told him to do so if things were getting tight.
No, he never liked taking charity very much, but
it had been a tough battle between his convictions and
the cash flow until the manager here had called him. One
of his old friends and co-workers had recommended him
to the management of the new place when they were short
handed. The owners were very particular about the level
of service and weren't hiring just anybody. It had been
hard work, but very rewarding financially, and things
were finally starting to look up.
The manager had dropped by earlier on his way
home for the night and handed him an envelope with the
last three night's pay. He was in the process of adding
up all his tips for the evening when a low whistle rang
out as one of the waiters came into the kitchen.
" Gentleman, I am in love."
The person making the statement was a well known
womanizer, not to mention one of the full time waiters. He
glanced into the mirror by the door to make sure his hair
was absolutely perfect. One of the busboys slightly
opened and looked out the doors.
" No way, Ryo. Not with a lady that classy."
" Five thousand yen says that I take her home, and
I'll pay anyone else twice what they bet if I don't," he
confidently stated, and then looked at Mamoru. " Hey,
Chiba! They're in your section. Can I serve them, and do
you want in?"
" Let me see," he smiled and glanced out the doors.
Somehow, he kept a straight face as he turned back. " Ryo,
I've got thirty thousand yen here that says you won't
even make it to the plate if you'll give me three to one
odds."
" Just to make it to the plate? Shit, Chiba. Don't
make me take your money. I'll ask her out in a second. You're
on, man," the younger man sneered and stepped out into
the dining area.
" Are you crazy?" the cook asked him
incredulously. " That boy needs a four poster bed for
all the notches he's racked up."
" No," Mamoru smiled back confidently. " He won't
even try anything. Watch."
It only took a few moments until the now-shaken
younger man came back into the kitchen.
" They want you to serve them, Chiba-san," he
stammered, beginning to blush.
" And... " he added expectantly.
" I... couldn't. I expected her boyfriend to
frighten me off or something, but he didn't even seem
to notice me. She just looked at me, and I couldn't bring
myself to say anything. That chick is scary."
" Hah!" the cook exclaimed in triumph, since he had
bet against the younger man in hopes of getting the odds.
" Don't worry, Ryo," Mamoru consoled him before
going out into the dining area to see what they
wanted. " You can pay it in installments."
" Good evening, ladies," he greeted them. " It's
very nice to see you today. Is there anything I can get
for you?"
" Yes," the sandy-haired blonde drawled back at
him. The leather racing team jacket with the sponsor's
patches she wore was a splash of daring, stylish color
among the dull earth tones that were currently in
fashion. " Your manager."
" Haruka," he cautioned her. " Don't do this. I
need this job."
" You could quite easily buy this entire chain,
Mamoru-san," Michiru gently reminded him.
" Look, I don't want your money," he protested.
Haruka's eyes went cold and she snapped her
fingers loud enough to get the assistant manager to
jump up and hurry over to her. She held up a hand to
stop his inquiry and began to peel off several ten-thousand
yen notes from a roll of them in her pocket.
" We're hiring this gentleman here to be our dinner
companion for the evening. I assume he can be spared from
his regular duties for the occasion. I also want three
rib-eyes out here in ten minutes with all of the trimmings,
and tell your cook he had better live up to the standards
of the first one of these places in Texas. I eat there
whenever I'm in the area, and the owner is a good friend
and a sponsor. Any problems?" she finished coldly,
dismissing him with her eyes.
" No, sir," he stammered and fled back into the
safety of the kitchen.
" Mamoru-san, please, sit down," Michiru asked
and slid over to make some more room for him. He did so,
but warily. This looked to be another of their recent
disagreements. They were always too polite towards him
for it to be called a fight.
" It's not 'our' money, Mamoru," Haruka began,
meeting his gaze. " It belongs to both of you. We're
just the trustees."
" And you can keep on doing that," he cut in. " Usagi
said she'd ask for it if she needed it, and I don't want it."
" No, Michiru," Haruka cut off the turquoise haired
woman as she began to speak, and then looked back at the
young man and caught his gaze. " We've been nice to you
for long enough. It's been six months, Mamoru. Six months
since we almost lost her. That's enough of a vacation. It's
time you started properly doing your part in protecting her."
" What!" he hissed, unconsciously bending the heavy,
silver spoon he had been slowly twirling between his
fingers. Michiru put her hand over his as he began to
stand up and call her out. She took the utensil from his
hands and put her other hand on his forearm to reassure
him.
" Mamoru-san," she implored him, waiting for the
flush of anger to fade from his face. " We've told you
what we found. We can't do anything with any of the books.
We tried. Ami-chan can almost detect it on a regular basis,
and I'm only a little better. We use magic somehow, but
we can't manipulate it. You're the only one of us who can."
He sighed heavily, keeping his thoughts to himself
for the next several minutes until the food arrived. Ami
and Michiru had been very determined after their encounter
with the magi to find out just what they all could do, and
exactly how they did it. They'd drawn a blank, even with
finding a cache of books related to the subject that were
in one of Setsuna's homes.
It had been during that time that while fighting the
magi that he began to experiment more with his own
abilities, and found out that he had much more control
than the Senshi. He had been meaning to help them more
in their experiments, but his studies at school, his
jobs and Usagi had been taking up all his time.
" We've got a proposal for you," Michiru said
after they had been served. " You're the only one who
has a chance of understanding anything in those books.
You already have the most manifestations of power than
any of us."
A puzzled look came across his face. " Me?"
" Roses, the cane, a ranged attack, two forms,
and some type of pre-cognitive abilities tied in with
teleportation," Haruka ticked the examples off on her
fingers, and then picked up the bent spoon. " No matter
when or how, you always were there whenever Usagi-chan
was in trouble. That's magic in anyone's book."
" What do you want me to do, then?" he asked,
carefully looking at both of them in turn.
" We want to hire you, Mamoru. Setsuna wanted all
of you to be able to go to whatever school you wished
without having to work at the same time. Therefore, we'll
take over your tuition, rent and other expenses in exchange
for your working on figuring out just what you do and how
you do it."
" That's basically the same offer I turned down
before," he said apologetically, and gave them a bleak
smile. " Why should I accept it this time? I told you I
don't want your pity."
Haruka's hand hit his face hard enough to rock him
back in his seat. It hadn't been a punch, but a stinging
slap by the back of her left hand. She stood up, eyes
flashing in anger and looking like she was ready to
swing on him again as she made a fist of her right hand
and drew it slightly back. It was several seconds before
she took a deep breath and let the two pieces of silver
that were the spoon fall to the tablecloth from her
right hand.
" Talk to him, Michiru. See if you can get him to
start thinking straight. If that doesn't work, I'll try
hitting him a few more times."
" You deserved that, you know," Michiru commented
as she took another bite of her steak while Haruka
stalked out. A few moments later, the low-pitched roar
of a sportscar engine sped off into the distance.
" I won't do it, Michiru. Not when it's being
offered out of pity. I had to deal with enough of
that in the orphanage."
Her soft, easy laughter distracted him from the
dark mood his thoughts were in. He had an irrational
need to push back when Haruka pushed him, and she had
been doing a lot of that recently. Usagi had designated
the tall woman the tactical leader of the Senshi, and
Haruka had been quick to try and address her perceptions
of their shortcomings. She had been especially hard on
him, in his opinion.
" Mamoru, we never pitied you," she explained,
filling the napkin of the spare place setting with some
ice and handing it to him. " This isn't the two rich
ones lording it over on you. Haruka and I made a lot
of money even before we had met Setsuna, but we never
felt sorry for you because you never had as much.
" This is about taking care of Usagi, and Haruka
is scared by what happened. We got lucky again, and
that's killing her inside. If it hadn't been for
Minako's sacrifice, you and Rei would be the only ones
left right now. Hotaru wasn't going to hold back, and...
well, we won't outlive each other by any great margin."
" Haruka scared?" he echoed, missing what she
had just admitted.
" We're not using to relying on luck, Mamoru," she
continued after taking a sip of wine and pushing her
plate several centimeters away. " It worries both of
us that it came so close to being over. We spent a
long time getting by on our own when we were dealing
with the daemons, and she's not used to relying on
others, or luck. Haruka is also having a problem because
you don't act as dedicated to the princess as she
thinks you should be."
" That's awfully honest but somewhat convoluted," he
admitted a few moments later.
The turquoise haired woman carefully thought out her
next words before continuing. " She doesn't doubt your
desire to protect the princess, but you don't act as overtly
as she does in regards to it," Michiru explained a few
moments later. " Haruka pretends that she isn't hurt by
what happened, but she spent several nights in tears over
her feelings of inadequacy after we got Usagi back."
" And you?" he asked a few moments later. " How do
you feel?"
" I'm better at hiding it than she is," Michiru
smiled at him and took a last bite of the steak before
taking out her purse and touching up her lipstick. " This
isn't for us, Mamoru-san. It's not a ploy to make you feel
bad. We're concerned for her safety, and you're the only
one who can do this.
" There have been five golem attacks ever since we
beat the magi. We can no longer assume that they are all
gone. Their order has come back from the dead before and
you are our only hope in learning how to fight them," she
said, putting one of her hands over his. " Will you work
with us, so we can do our job of protecting her properly?"
" All right," he capitulated a few moments
later. " I'm glad you explained it a little better to
me. I'm still not fond of doing it this way, Michiru,
but I'll do it."
" Thank you," she beamed in gratitude, and then
got up. He took a quick swallow of coffee and got to his
feet as well.
" Do you need a ride?" he offered as they walked
out to the parking lot. " I may have driven off your
escort for this evening."
" That's all right," she smiled and gave him a
quick kiss on his cheek, the one without the bruise. " It
is sweet of you to ask, though."
She pulled her communicator out of her purse. It
beeped softly as she pressed one of the buttons, and
she put it back. " She'll be by in a few minutes. It
was just a matter of letting off some steam. Why don't
you go on and head home, and we can work everything out
tomorrow?"
He was finally persuaded to leave her, and climbed
into the white and blue AC Cobra that he had been loaned
by Haruka while his car was in for repairs and a rebuild
on the engine. With a jaunty salute, he sped off as she
waved good-bye. He was as bad as Haruka when it came to
cars, it seemed.
Her ride pulled into the lot a few minutes later
and rolled to a stop next to the woman. There was a
slight click as the lock on the passenger side
disengaged and she opened the door.
" Well?"
" He'll do it," she confirmed, taking a seat in
the white and yellow roadster.
" How much did you tell him?"
" Everything," she confessed. " He won't say
anything to the others, though. He's too much the gentleman,
and I needed to use it as a scare tactic. You did cry a few
times about it, after all."
" Michiru?" the tall woman asked hesitantly a few
minutes later as they waited at a stop light. Her voice
was unusual; a soft, tentative tone that made Michiru
realize how much something was affecting her. " Next time,
I want to be the good cop. I don't want them to get to set
in their feelings about me. I do care about them and how
they feel."
" Haruka!" she gently laughed, despite the slightly
worried look on her companion's face. " It would never
work, I'm afraid. It would absolutely ruin my own
reputation for being the sweet, gentle and cultured
one.
" Besides, who's going to believe that I would
hit them?"
End - Prologue.
************************************************
The End of the Beginning.
" Here you go, Hotaru-chan," the young woman said,
setting down the tray that held two cups of steaming
Oolong tea. Ami waited for her to take one, and then
picked up the other and gently blew across the surface
to cool it a bit, enjoying the initial feel of the warmth
of the tea through the ceramic cup.
" Thank you, Ami-chan," she replied to the blue
haired girl with a polite smile. " I still don't know
why you need to keep on doing this, though."
" I do it for almost all of us, Hotaru-chan," she
explained. " We're not precisely the same as everyone
else, and I need to keep the records in case we ever
need the medical information."
" You said almost back there," the raven-haired
girl said, seizing a potential opportunity with a quick
smile. " What would it take to be 'almost'?"
Ami laughed in response, taking a sip of tea
before putting it down and opening her computer. She
tapped a few keys and handed it over to the other
young woman.
" Hit ENTER, and you'll see what I mean."
Hotaru did, and watched the computer flash up a
warning and beep at her in an almost annoyed tone.
REQUEST SCAN OF SUBJECT: MEIOU, SETSUNA
REQUEST DENIED
PLEASE ENTER PASSWORD FROM SUBJECT TO CONTINUE
" It did that to me anytime I tried to get a recording
of anything about her," Ami admitted, blushing. " Trust me,
I tried. I started keeping a medical file on each of us right
after Usagi-chan and I first met Rei-chan. Setsuna-san
thought it was a good idea, but wouldn't talk to me about
why my computer says that every time I tried to scan her."
" I miss her," the other young woman admitted with a
sigh.
" We all do, Hotaru-chan," Ami said, putting a
reassuring hand over one of the other girl's. " There
still hasn't been any sign?"
" No. The financial people keep on getting
instructions that they say are hers. It's good advice
as well."
" That's too bad," Ami responded a few moments
later. " Chibi-usa still hasn't gotten over finding out
that the time keys can work without her. She was certain
that when she got called to return to the future that Pluto
was back."
" I know, Ami-chan," she said flatly. " Chibi-usa-chan
will be back in a few days, too, and her heart will break
if there still isn't any sign of her. What do you need me
to do for this, anyway?"
" Well," Ami started, looking around the sitting
room of the penthouse suite in one of the three towers
that overlooked the large, tree-filled park that marked
the remains of the Infinity Academy. " We should go into
your room. It will be a lot more private there."
" We're on the top floor of the tallest building
for kilometers around," Hotaru laughed. She stood up and
slipped the plain black dress she wore over her head. " The
only people who could possible see me would need to be in
a helicopter, Ami-chan."
Ami giggled nervously, blushed and took a drink of
tea. " I guess you're right, but you'll need to take
everything off, Hotaru-chan. You may have stopped growing
again, and I need to have the most accurate information
possible. You're still a unique case."
" All right," Hotaru replied, managing a small
grin. " At least you won't try and make me wear one of
those silly paper robes like my regular doctor will."
She finished undressing as Ami resolutely kept her
eyes on her computer screen and began typing, her many
years of experience offsetting the difficulty of using
the small keyboard. The scanners were already working,
compiling another set of statistics in the memory, and
she pulled up a window with the summary of the last scan
she had of Hotaru from three months ago.
" I'm a little surprised that this bothers you,
Ami-chan," she said, startling the other girl, and then
risked a mischievous smile. " Don't you want to be a
doctor?"
" Well," Ami blushed again and took the
defensive. " We don't have the normal doctor and patient
relationship that the medical programs train you for, so
it does seem a little strange."
" I'm sorry, then," she replied. " I was never
really modest after the accident. After the first few
dozen doctors prod you for a while, you don't care about
it anymore."
Ami hazarded a glance at her. " You don't even
look like it ever happened."
" I look that way now," Hotaru replied, referring
to the accident twelve years ago where her mother was
killed and she was fatally injured. It was only by the
bargain her father made by selling his soul to Pharaoh
Ninety that she survived the explosion in the laboratory.
" Before, most of my major joints were artificial,
or held together by lots of plastic and metal. Most of the
larger bones were broken and had pins in them. I used to
set off the detectors at the airport when we went to the
orthopedic clinic in Los Angeles for the second and third
operations. I wore those body suits all the time when we
first met because the scarring was so bad after all the
surgeries."
Ami started to express her condolences when her
computer beeped at her.
" This is sickening," she muttered. " I think you
look like you're about sixteen or seventeen, but in the
past three months you've put on another twelve centimeters.
You're already taller than I am, and I don't think you've
stopped yet."
" Yes!" the girl exulted, and then reigned in her
excitement. " I'm sorry, Ami-chan. It's just that I've
always been the shortest one and Michiru and Haruka are
so tall. I didn't mean anything by it."
" That's all right," she responded. " You just
might catch Michiru at this rate. Can you keep a secret?"
Hotaru nodded, picked up her underwear and glanced
at Ami, who nodded in reply before continuing. " Usagi
has been wearing heels a lot more recently, and I've
taken to wearing flats most of the time so she won't
notice. She's the shortest of us now by a total of two
millimeters."
" You didn't tell her?" Hotaru asked as she began
to dress.
" No," was the reply as Ami set up a new program
and started it. " It isn't as important to me as it is
to her. I had gotten just a little bit taller than her
a while back, and then she caught up and passed me. She
knows that I'm almost her height, but not that I've
surpassed it. Would you please change into Sailor Saturn
now?"
Astonishment and surprise filled her voice a few
moments later after Hotaru complied with her request,
a scepter appearing in her hands and a cascade of purple
light falling on her from the ceiling.
" Would you change back and forth a few times?" Ami
asked, getting a puzzled look on her face. Hotaru did
as asked, wondering what was wrong.
" Well?"
" That's really strange," Ami said a few minutes
later. " You didn't gain in height or weight when you
changed."
" What?"
Ami took a deep breath and leaned back in her seat,
motioning for the other girl to join her. Hotaru did so
after changing back. " Perhaps you didn't notice it
because you've still been growing so much over a relatively
short period of time, but we all got a little bigger after
we first became Senshi. It wasn't much, only about a
centimeter or so and a kilo or two, but we all changed
after our first transformation."
" Mine wasn't really normal, I guess," Hotaru
admitted, shrugging. " Not with someone else controlling
my body at the time."
" We don't really know why it happened," Ami
continued. " It may be part of why we're different
from normal people. As Senshi, we're somewhat stronger,
faster, and so on. The extra height and weight might
just be the changes to our skeletal structure and
musculature that enables us to do that."
" That must have been fun dealing with," she
quipped. " I guess it was time for a new wardrobe, huh?"
" You don't know just how much fun it was," Ami
dryly replied. " Ever wear a bra that was just a little
too small?"
Hotaru winced at the thought, causing Ami to
laugh at her reaction before going back to her
explanation. " When I first became Mercury, I was
about a total of two centimeters taller than I had been
a week before that. I had been measured for a physical
as part of my transfer to another new school, so I knew
my height quite well. The rest of us had pretty much the
same results. We all gained a little bit permanently, and
a little more on top of that when we transform.
" I'm one of the least noticeable ones, with Mako-chan
and Haruka-san being at the other end of the spectrum.
They're physically a lot stronger than I am, though, so
that could be part of the reason."
Hotaru went pale at the pleased look that came over
Ami's face after that statement and unconsciously leaned
away from her on the couch.
" Hotaru-chan," Ami sweetly asked. " You do have
a private gym on this floor, don't you?"
" Yes," she nervously replied.
" That's wonderful," Ami almost purred, rising
to her feet. " I was looking for something to occupy
my mind today, and I just realized that you gave me a
new puzzle to try and figure out. I want to get some
idea of how strong you are now and when you're Sailor
Saturn, among a few things. Treadmills and weights to
begin with, I believe.
" I may have had a problem acting like a doctor a
few moments ago, but I'm great at being a research
scientist."
************************************************
The conditions that night were some of the nicest
she had seen in a long time, and she was glad that he had
asked her to accompany him this evening. She slipped from
one shadow to another, carefully avoiding making a sound.
There was only a little bit of light from the stars right
now, so it was a nice change of pace. The hunting in the
park near Usagi's didn't have nearly the challenge that
this place had, and the artificial lights made it so
easy some times.
A gleam of silver ahead of her was Artemis doing
much the same as she, although he had gotten to be
slightly better than her at night work. His coat made
him use more care and skill in planning his approach.
She had realized that she had gotten sloppy one time
they were playing hide and seek a few months ago to
keep their skills honed.
Despite her coloring giving her a distinct advantage
at night, she had been spotted more times than he and had
been the loser that evening. That was why they were now
prowling the slopes of the hill by the shrine. The thick
undergrowth was a natural haven for their prey and would
give her many opportunities to practice.
He had stopped and was slightly tensed. She saw
his ears twitch forward, indicating he had spotted
something. Automatically, she swung out to circle
around on his right and get herself in position. She
was the one who needed the practice here, and he
understood that.
Whatever it was, it had no idea that she was
here. The rustling continued as she crept forward. She
stepped over a dry twig, and carefully avoided some
brittle leaves until she was in the position she
desired. Mouse, she realized, catching the scent as
the breeze swung a little more towards her.
It only took a few more minutes. She had the
patience that a regular cat couldn't match and her prey
soon moved in closer to her. The mouse couldn't see her
in the dim light and she wasn't moving. The kill was
almost anti-climactic.
" Good stalk," he said as he walked up to her. She
shrugged and let the mouse go. It sat in shock for a few before scampering away into a tuft of grass. They
both tensed instinctively, preparing for the chase, and
then smiled at their reactions.
" It wasn't much of a challenge," she sniffed and
examined one of her paws.
" It should never be a challenge," he replied,
sitting down next to her. " Your instincts are still
there, Luna. You're just out of practice."
" You would be if you had my job," she added
somewhat defensively. He flinched slightly at that,
and she realized what she had implied. " I'm sorry,
Artemis. I didn't mean... it's just that she's still
so much work for me."
" I know," he sighed and leaned against her a
little bit. " I have a lot more free time now, and
some nights it is very nice to be able to let instincts
take over for a while and not have to remember."
" I know," she whispered. " I miss that, too."
" I told you I could take some of your nights for
you."
" I... she's still such a handful that I really
wouldn't feel right doing that. Sometimes I feel that
she'll never grow up."
" You've done a good job, dear," he added and
began to groom her behind the ears, right where he knew
she liked it. " Usagi is a light that only shines in the
darkest hours."
" And to think that I wondered just where Minako-chan
came up with all that horrible dialogue that Usagi-chan
copied," Luna teased him before getting serious. " She's
having a tougher time accepting it right now. Usagi has
been very upset ever since Minako-chan saw her changing.
She almost tried using the crystal last night to bring
her back."
" Baka," he growled softly. He got up and began
to walk up towards the top of the hill. " I could have
told her that it won't work."
" Artemis," she called out in a shocked voice
as she followed him. " You mean to tell me that-"
" What would you expect?" he whispered so quietly
she almost didn't hear what he said. She could, however,
easily feel the pain in his voice. " Yes, I tried to
reach her mind. She was as much my daughter as Diana
will ever be. She was my friend, Luna.
" I snuck in to see her the first night and almost
put my entire soul into her in an effort to find out what
happened. I still couldn't find her. I've done the same
thing every couple of months on the hope that we've
somehow gotten lucky.
" That girl looks like her and smells like her,
but we still can't prove that it is the Minako we knew.
There's no sign of Minako. I can't even find any sign of
Venus anymore."
" Oh, no!" she exclaimed. " Artemis, I'm so sorry.
Why didn't you tell us?"
He sighed as they reached the actual grounds of
the shrine but didn't answer her right away. Phobos and
Deimos didn't even stir from their perch as the cats
walked by them after climbing a tree en route to a warm
spot on the roof near the chimney. It was only after
they had curled up in a ball together that he went on.
" I may have been wrong, Luna, and I couldn't...
couldn't bring myself to break her heart like that."
" That's true. It has been tough enough for Usagi
with Minako-chan being gone, let alone the chance that
it might be permanent, " she replied, remembering the
scene on the chartered Learjet after Usagi had been seen
off by Minako's parents. Usagi, along with Michiru, Haruka
and the two cats were supposed to be going to Europe to
see the girl who was being hired to be Minako's double
on the volleyball tour. The strain of having to imitate
Minako and deal with her parents left Usagi so
emotionally drained that she had collapsed as soon
as the doors closed.
Michiru took her into her arms and got her onto
the plane's couch. Usagi wasn't wailing like she usually
did when she cried. This was a quiet sobbing that just
wouldn't stop until she fell asleep a few hours later.
The two women diverted the plane to Okinawa and took
Usagi to a private resort for some time to recover and
regroup. The two cats, along with Haruka, flew back
later that night in order to bring Mamoru to Usagi. She
also took the opportunity to do a light mind-touch on
Usagi's family so they wouldn't miss her for a few weeks
since the black cat was the most familiar with them.
" Her mother would be proud of her," he added a
few moments later. " I think that we've done a good job."
" I think so, too," she replied before resting
her head on him and closing her eyes for a brief
catnap. He was only too glad to join her, and for some
time the only sounds were the branches rustling in the
light breeze.
***********************************************
A small noise woke the child up in the darkness of
the early morning. She stirred and looked up before
breaking into a grin as she recognized the visitor. The
child didn't make a sound, though. She had learned that
the other one would leave if she began to cry out. The
mark on her forehead began to softly glow, giving
everything in the room a pale, golden tint that matched
the child's hair.
" That's very good, little one," the woman whispered,
picked up the child and made her way to a seat on the sofa
by the window. A hand was gently laid over the glowing
sigil as another appeared in response, glowing in a
luminescent violet on the woman's head. The child's
faded after a few minutes.
" You're not needed right now, sweetheart. Rest
while you can."
She always liked this view from this particular
house. The city lights and the darkness of Tokyo Bay
were a wonderful contrast and she used to spend a lot
of time here just looking at them. This was even better
now, she admitted to herself. It had been so long since
she had been able to do this.
The others were like her children in some ways, or
her younger sisters in an extended family. She had helped
raise almost all of them over the years, even the one she
now held. She had long since lost track of how many hours
had been spent like this in the early mornings of the past
in the castle on the moon, holding one of them and looking
up at the blue orb that loomed above them.
Her voice wasn't used to singing this softly and
threatened to break a few times, but she quietly crooned
a lullaby that hadn't been heard for over a thousand
years. The last time she had sang other than this was one
time just after meeting the first of the others here, when
she had walked in on them while they were playing music
together. She knew the words, of course. It was her help
that enabled the composer to finish the piece all those
years ago.
The other two had been startled, but continued
playing as she took over the role of the singer from
Haruka, and put her heart into it as a remembrance of
the glories that she had seen go by and the brilliance
of a young prodigy. They almost applauded as she finished,
but that would have spoiled the moment. They also wanted
her to continue performing with them, but she had
declined the invitation.
Her song tonight had the same effect on the
girl that it did in a previous life, and the child
was asleep in a few minutes. The woman was almost
surprised that she remembered the lullaby since it
had been so long ago. In a way, the others had it
easier. They didn't have to live through everything
like she had to, but had simply slept through a
thousand years.
No, they had it much easier, and on some days the
load was harder for her to bear than on others. The years
weighed heavily on her right now, and two lines of tears
silently made their way down her face.
The faintest of pressures on her shoulder made her
look up in surprise. The translucent form of a woman
stood before her. She had long, golden hair that reached
to her waist, a fuku of white and orange with a blue bow,
and her eyes were very sad, but also sympathetic. This
ghost knew something of her pain, she realized, and she
stood to properly greet her.
A thought silently changed her clothes to match
the style of the other's, a matching fuku but in a
black that seemed to absorb the light where the spirit
was in glowing orange. She nodded once, silently. Words
were not necessary.
Another figure appeared in the room. She was also
not fully there; a diaphanous, young woman who was just
a little shorter than the first apparition. She had
short, shoulder length black hair and her clothes
matched the others, but in purple with dark red ribbons.
The newcomer came over and embraced the woman,
melting into nothingness as she did so. She should have
been sad at her departure, but was refreshed in spirit.
The other one stepped forward as well. An insubstantial
hand stroked the child's hair once, and then she felt
the comfort that the embrace should have brought as
the image dissolved at her touch.
She wasn't alone, she realized, her mood brightening
somewhat. They did remember her, and understood her duty
and the demands it made on her.
" Thank you," she softly spoke and put the child
back into the crib. The blankets were carefully tucked
back in and she gave her a soft kiss on her forehead
before standing up straight. A staff appeared in her
hand, the gem at the top glowing a soft red, and she
vanished just before the door opened to admit a sleepy
young woman who stifled a yawn as she went in to check
on the child.
Her hair bobbed around her neck as she bent over
the crib, it's black color and cut an exact copy of that
of one of the spirits who had been in the room a few
moments before. The young woman yawned again and went
back to bed, still trying to figure out what had awoken
her a few moments ago if the child was asleep.
**********************************************
The calm night at the shrine didn't last long. The
crows started screeching at the same time the cats both
heard a fearful cry ring out from inside the shrine
building.
" Rei!" Luna called out, realizing that the voice
was too high pitched to be either of the men there. Two
lights came on downstairs and they could hear a pair of
footsteps going up the stairs. Artemis was in motion
already, scampering around the rooftop until he was
outside of Rei's window. Luna was right behind him.
They could see the door inside burst open as
Yuuichiro came through with Rei's grandfather in hot
pursuit. The girl herself was sitting upright in bed
with the covers tangled around her legs and waist. They
found that her eyes were wide and unblinking when the
older man threw the light switch.
" Rei-chan!" Yuuichiro called out to her and gently
shook her by the shoulders. His intentions were good, but
it still didn't prevent her grandfather from pitching him
out the door for approaching her in such a state of
relative undress.
" Make some tea, son," he called out over his
shoulder, flashing a brief smile of gratitude at the
younger man to let him know he wasn't in the wrong for
what he had done. They could see that while the priest
was concerned, he wasn't in a state of panic.
" Rei-chan," he softly called to her in a soothing
tone of voice. His hands pressed against the sides of
her head at the temple while he intoned a low chant
that reminded the cats of the mantra the girl used
with her wards. The girl shuddered and relaxed,
slumping against him for support.
" Thank you, ojii-san," she said a few minutes
later.
" A vision?" he asked. " You came out of the
dream in a trance state."
" Another vision," she admitted. A knock at the
door kept her from saying anything more. She
straightened the sheets and pulled them up around
her chest as he got up to open the door. Yuuichiro
came in with the tea and a look of concern on his
face that was mirrored on the two outside.
" Are you all right, Rei-san?" he asked, his
concerns and the presence of the priest making him
use a more respectful form of addressing her. She
nodded at him and gave him a warm smile when he handed
her the tea.
" Could we talk about it in the morning?" she
asked before her grandfather could ask her to explain
what she had seen. " I want... I need to meditate and
clear my mind before I start to forget anything about it."
" I'll go tend to the fire," Yuuichiro said,
moving to leave. Her grandfather nodded his agreement,
but she could see his concern. He turned down the
corridor and the younger man began to close the door.
" Thank you, Yuu-chan," she softly said, getting
a smile back from him. The door finished closing and
she heard a muffled cry from the hallway, and her
grandfather beginning one of his tirades about the
boy being too familiar with his granddaughter as
they went down the stairs. He did tend to be very
conservative in regards to their dating and their
relationship, but she also knew that he was hiding
a smile behind his mustache. The priest had gotten
fond of the young man over the years.
The scratching at the window roused her. She
opened it, and was rather surprised when two cats
jumped in instead of the birds she had expected. Artemis
blushed and politely turned away from her. Luna
affectionately smacked him in the back of the head
and muttered something about his being a peeping tom
while Rei blushed as well. She slid on a robe and tied
the sash before sitting back down on the bed.
" Are you all right, Rei-chan," Luna quietly
asked. " What's this about visions?"
" I had the first one about two months ago," she
admitted. " I'd wake up and have this grave sense of
foreboding, but I couldn't remember seeing the cause."
" And it was worse tonight?" Artemis ventured. The
girl nodded before taking a drink of the tea. She held
up a hand to them and spent a few minutes composing her
thoughts before continuing.
" We've been studying astronomy in my science
class at school. The sun is supposed to eventually cool
off for a long time before partially collapsing and going
nova. It will blow off most of it's outer layers a few
billion years from now. This will destroy most of the
inner planets, by the way," she nervously added, grimacing
despite trying to smile and make it a joke.
" It didn't happen in the future like it was
supposed to in my dream. It was happening now. The final
winter came. Everything was freezing, and we... we all
died."
************************************************
" Thanks for waiting, Usagi-chan," she said, still
slightly out of breath from running to the recently
opened cafe from the bus stop.
" It was no problem," she replied as she looked
up from the cup of Darjeeling tea she was nursing
along. " I'm glad you could make it today."
Naru smiled as she sat down in the other seat
of the corner booth, marveling at the changes she had
seen over the past year and a half. While she had only
been about ten minutes late, the Usagi she used to know
would have had the table covered with empty ice cream
soda glasses by now, or some other calorie-laden
concoction.
" You know, she admitted, glancing around to
make sure that none of the other patrons of the cafe
could hear them. " It is kind of ironic that you chose
this place to meet today."
" Huh?" she blurted as a confused look came
across her face.
" It is called Cafe Luna, silly," Naru smiled,
her blue eyes sparkling in the sunlight. Usagi blushed
in relief before she could prevent it, and then felt
a little pang of loss at seeing the green bow holding
back Naru's reddish-brown hair. She recalled a similar
red one that someone else used to wear who also had
blue eyes and smiled a lot.
" Why do you say that?" she asked, still hoping
that the conversation wouldn't go in a certain way.
Sometimes, she had this eerie feeling that Naru knew
more than she was letting on. It wasn't entirely
explained by the fact that her boyfriend was the vital
cog in the rumor mill, either.
" Your cat," she commented, and Usagi breathed a
sigh of relief.
" Any word from that college?" she asked, hoping
to change the subject.
" That's part of what I wanted to talk to you
about," Naru began, pouring herself a cup of tea and
browsing through the menu for a moment, and then
catching the waiter's eye so they could place their
orders.
" We got our acceptance letters from Nekomi Tech
yesterday, although it is still conditional on our
finishing high school, if you want to call going in
just for homeroom every morning the equivalent of high
school."
" Naru!" she gasped, feeling happy for her
friend. " I'm so glad for you! You both really wanted
to go to the same university, and he's had that one in
mind since grade school."
" I know," the brunette smiled back. " The extra
credits we got from taking the summer classes allowed
us to finish most of our schooling and take the
entrance exams a semester early. I put in for their
business program so I can help my mom, and Umino is
going for the computer courses.
" We met this really nice exchange student when
we toured the campus last week, and she and Umino got
along really well. They were speaking in Greek, for all
I knew while they talked about computers and stuff, but
he thinks that we'll do well there. Can you believe that
the auto club already is already trying to get him to
sign up with them to help computerize their latest
project?"
" He doesn't even have a driver's license yet," she
protested, heartily laughing all the while. " I'm glad
that you got accepted, but I'm going to really miss you.
Nekomi is on the other side of Tokyo, and you've already
said that you want to move into a place near the
university you went to."
" I know, Usagi-chan. We won't be able to see
each other as much for a little while, but you're going
to be awfully busy yourself. You still have the last
semester to finish up and your entrance exams to take.
You're going to be eighteen in a few months and you
need to get some idea of what school you want to go
to."
" I need to make it through this one first," she
moaned. " Haruna-sensei has finally gotten over her
surprise at the change in my grades and is getting her
revenge for the principal assigning her to every class
as I progressed to it."
" The other teachers were afraid of you,
Usagi-chan," Naru giggled. " Haruna-sensei is just
paying the price for complaining about you so much to
the other teachers."
" She'll be the end of me!" they both intoned in
unison in a near-perfect imitation of the teacher they
had in their first two years of high school before
breaking into easy laughter together. The waiter came
by at that time to drop off their meals, and they were
quiet for a few minutes as they began to eat.
" Thank you," Naru said suddenly after releasing
a deep sigh. " I've been a nervous wreck trying to
figure out how to approach you on it, but I did want
to thank you."
" Excuse me?"
" Usagi," she began, clearly not using the -chan
suffix she always used when talking to her in order to
emphasize the seriousness of what she was about to say
and the closeness of their relationship. " I know,
Usagi. I've known for quite some time about who you
also are."
" Naru-chan," she stammered, letting her fork slip
from her fingers and clearly at a loss for words. Naru
reached out and took Usagi's hands in her own.
" I used to be mad about what happened, and that
you didn't tell me. We've been the best of friends since
the third grade, and then everything changed after you
got Luna almost four years ago. Suddenly, you didn't have
the time for me, it seemed. You had a bunch of new
friends, and I figured that was the end of it. People
sometimes just drift apart as life goes on.
" Then, out of the blue, you wanted back into my
life like everything was back to the way it used to be.
That went on for nearly a half a year, and then you're
gone again and running around with Ami-chan and
Mako-chan. The funny thing was that you had been so
close so suddenly, and all three of you seemed to have
forgotten about each other at the same time, and then
remembered about your previous friendship at the same
time."
She held up a hand to forestall Usagi's protests
and took a sip of water.
" It finally clicked, Usagi. I don't know why it
took so long, but I suddenly realized what was going
on with you a couple of years ago, and then I realized
the truth about the rest of them once I thought about
it for a little while. Wherever you were, she would
show up."
" I'm sorry, Naru-chan. I don't know what to say."
" I won't tell anyone, Usagi," she went on with a
little smile. " Not even Umino. I realize how much you've
had to do to protect so many people as well as us, and I
don't hold it against you for not telling me. I'm just
glad that you've taken the time over the last two years
to spend some more time with me, and to not just let
our friendship die. It really means a lot to me, although
I wish you would let me help you with what's been
bothering you so much the last week. I know you well
enough to see that you're hiding something."
" In for a penny," she sighed heavily, and fished
her wallet out of her purse. She flipped it open, took
out a picture and handed it over to Naru. " Do you
remember Minako-chan?"
" Yes," she said, looking at the picture of the
little girl. " She went to Europe to go to school, didn't
she? This is the baby that Michiru-san and Haruka-san
adopted, though."
" No," she forced the words out past the
pain. " That's not right. She died almost two years
ago, Naru-chan. She gave up her life to save mine. We
think she was reborn as that child, but we don't have
any way of knowing for certain."
" Usagi-" she began, slipping around in the booth
and putting a comforting arm around her friend.
" That's not all, though," she interrupted and
sniffled, trying to hold back the tears that were welling
in her eyes. " She's really bright and quickly learned all
of our names. She saw me transform one day last week. I
wasn't thinking and did it in front of her. Now, she's
changed in how she acts towards me. I was her favorite
one, and now she doesn't even remember my name anymore."
A sob finally escaped from her as she began to
tremble. " She calls me Serenity."
Naru blinked in confusion, not knowing what Usagi
was referring to, but the pain her friend was feeling was
obvious. She gathered her into her arms to console her,
and held Usagi while she half-heartedly tried to pull away.
" No... can't cry," Usagi managed between the sobs
she was trying to suppress. " I have to be strong. She
gave me another chance and I have to be strong this time."
" Silly girl," Naru gently scolded her as the dam
broke and the tears began to roll down her face. She
pulled her head down onto her shoulder and patted her
gently on the back. " You can't hold everything in like
that, Usagi-chan. Just let it out, and then we can talk
about it. We've got plenty of time, and you can tell me
all about it."
************************************************
The bell rang, signaling the end of classes for
the day and causing a stampede for the doors. What she
would do next was mainly done just to annoy Sister
Agnes. The old nun had been a monster towards all of
them recently, and she just couldn't take it anymore.
Her locker was just outside the room that the
old prune taught in during the last period, and she
also knew that the teacher would be just beyond the
doors to the walkway outside right now, trying to get
the other girls to behave in a more dignified fashion.
Fat chance of that on a Friday afternoon in early April
when the sun was in the sky, boyfriends were out there
to be found and a vacation loomed ahead.
Fishing the denim shorts out of her locker, she
slid them on underneath her skirt and stepped out of
the lower half of the uniform of Thomas Aquinas school
for girls. Her top came off next, revealing the T-shirt
she wore underneath it to combat the overachieving
air-conditioner in the new building that nearly made
her last two classes the equivalent of a winter
wonderland.
She didn't like the cold in that building and
dressed accordingly, all the while considering throwing
a curse on the ancestors of whichever dirty old priest
came up with the school uniform. Being forced to wear
a short skirt in winter wasn't easy, not when you
preferred the heat of summer. The spring weather was
the most variable, however. It would be warm outside,
freezing inside and difficult to adjust to the change.
The garments went into her backpack along with the
uniform shoes. She stepped into her sneakers and ran out
the doors, passing the old nun in a blink of an eye.
" Good-bye, Sister Agnes!" she called out cheerfully,
scandalizing her teacher and sending her into a fit of
spluttering about the degradation of morals in this age
and what a proper young lady should be wearing. She
herself was far too respectful of other religions to
insult them, but nothing in the Shinto precepts taught
to her by her grandfather said anything about poking a
little fun at a fractious old nun who thought that the
ideal career for her students was joining a nunnery.
Some of the other girls there had a good laugh at
the expense of the teacher as Rei
continued running out the gates and down the low
hill. Her conditioning let her keep up the brisk pace
and to just make it past St. Andrew's before the bell
rang there. She liked the attention from the boys there
at her school's affiliate, but she wasn't in the mood
right now to fend off some of her ardent admirers. By
the time the boys got out of class and off the school
grounds she was two blocks away and around a corner.
Assured of having a peaceful time the rest of the
way home, she slowed her pace to a steady walk and window
shopped at a few of her favorite stores as she went by. Her
wardrobe needed a few new things, anyway, and she liked to
get out and see the displays of the new merchandise. She
hadn't the opportunity to do much of that recently.
A number of things had made her very busy recently.
She had taken one of the preparatory classes for her
university entrance exams despite Ami's offer of help. Ami
was a wonderful friend but wouldn't be as hard on her as
she needed someone to be at times.
Things were also looking up between her and
Yuuichiro. Somewhere, the ice had broken between them.
She didn't know when or where it had occurred. Their
relationship was also a slow one to develop. It wasn't
easy going from being friends with someone to becoming
lovers, which was what it seemed to be heading towards.
Between these things and her duties as a Senshi,
she had been very busy, indeed, but she decided that
she felt good enough today to take a little detour. Going
through the mall up ahead would add a few blocks to her
trip, but she didn't mind. The shop would be open.
The mall she turned into was an old one and an old
design. The newer malls were practically glass enclosed
cities with wide streets. This one was open to the sky
and almost narrow, and it only covered the distance
between the two streets. Some food vendors had set up
carts, resulting in a delicious smell and an almost
tangible warmth that the new malls lacked. The shops
and their customers had been here for a long time in
most cases, and she simply liked it better here.
She darted into one shop and poked her head around
the corner into another. The proprietor of the one she
was in smiled at the game that was played out about once
every two weeks. The clerk at the music store was helping
some grungy looking guys in the drum section, so she
slipped around the corner, went in and sat down at the
bench of the organ by the entrance.
The functions of the switches had already been
memorized, and her fingers flew over the two banks above
the twin keyboard. They pressed down a few keys and lifted
several others. The organ hummed a little as it warmed up,
and then the thunderous opening of the movement filled up
the store. Even the rockers turned, impressed by the power
of the piece despite it's classical origin, and listened
until she had finished.
" That was excellent work," said an older man who
had come out of the office in the back of the store as
she played. " It will, however, take more that cutting
off several opening bars or so of that one to fool me,
my dear.
" That was from Gustav's 'The Planets', but your
selection surprises me. You're more of a Jupiter to me.
The bringer of jollity, you lighten up my store every
time you show up, Miss Hino."
" Jupiter?" she echoed in surprise as she powered
down the organ and reset the controls. Then she laughed
aloud. " No, I'm not a Jupiter."
" Neptune the mystic, perhaps, but anything other
than the bringer of war," he smiled back. " I'm sure that
Holst never had you in mind when he wrote that work."
" I can only hope to be like Neptune," she
cryptically responded and then laughed again, shaking
off the sudden somber look that came into her eyes. " I'm
clearly and definitely Mars, I'm afraid."
" Well, Miss Mars," he said as he extended a hand
to help her to her feet. " Are you going to be able to
get yourself that birthday present you want so much?"
" I'm close, but not that close. I only have a few
weeks until the birthday comes around and I'm about two
months away from saving up for the piano."
" That's too bad, then. I know how much you want
that one we have."
" Yes," she admitted, looking in the direction of
the upright. She had been saving up for it for over a
year now. While it would have only taken a word to some
of her friends to obtain it, she wanted to get it on her
own.
The mirrors at the back of the store behind the piano
revealed something that made her face go pale. She spun
just in time to see a cascade of auburn hair move out of
her line of sight and then she was already on her way to
the door. The owner of that hair had been in the doorway
when she glanced in the mirror.
" I'm sorry, Mr. Tomino," she called out over her
shoulder. " I just saw someone I needed to talk to. I'll
be back in here soon!"
It only took her a few moments to reach the walkway
and begin to run in the direction the other woman had
taken. The walkway was virtually empty with the exception
of the sidewalk area about fifty meters away. The only
ones near her a mother and her two young children. She
slowed to a stop.
A loud sigh escaped her lips as she blankly walked
towards the street in order to have a look around even
though she knew that she wouldn't see her there. The wall
to her right got an accusing stare from her.
Ghosts were supposed to be able to go through
walls, and she had seen a ghost a few moments ago. It
had been nearly two years since anyone had seen that
girl who was in the mirror. A whisper escaped her
without really being noticed.
" Hamaji."
***********************************************
" Do you feel it, too?"
Haruka looked up as a shadow fell across her. She
shivered despite the fact that it was a pleasant morning
and she was wearing a shirt and slacks.
" Yes."
" The seas are troubled, Haruka," Michiru said as
she sat down next to her on the towel. Michiru had
wanted to go swimming in the ocean in order to clear
her mind, so they had driven to this resort late last
night. They only had gotten a few hours of sleep but
they were used to that. Neither of them needed as much
as a normal person, and they had the beach to
themselves at this early hour.
" Just like the wind," the blonde added, glancing
up. The sun was just rising over the horizon and colored
the clouds in tones of orange. " It looks calm, but you
can feel the tension building."
" Something is going to happen today," Michiru
replied and began to dry her hair with her towel.
" Do you still like my hands?" Haruka grinned,
catching Michiru's and gathering her into an embrace.
The other woman laughed gently and let herself get
pulled down onto her partner. The white one-piece she
wore was still wet and left some damp marks on Haruka's
shirt.
" Yes, I still like your hands," she murmured,
squeezing them and remembering that day when they had
felt this way before. To their surprise, it turned out
that they actually had the talismans that they had been
looking for. Neither had realized it because the
artifacts were supposed to be in the possession of
a person with a pure heart. Haruka had said that
particular morning that she thought her hands were
dirty, a metaphor for all the things that she had
done that she felt would have made her unable to have
the talisman..
" I like your heart, too," she added, leaning
over to briefly kiss Haruka. " We'd best be going,
then. I told Makoto that we'd be at her place by nine
to pick up Minako-chan."
" Nine?" she protested, grinning. " That doesn't
leave me much time to drive all the way back to Tokyo if
you take the hour you usually do getting ready. You must
have a lot of faith in my driving."
" I'm the passenger, aren't I?" she quipped, getting
to her feet and helping Haruka to hers. They walked up
the beach and back to the inn with their arms around
each other.
***********************************************
" That's really weird," she agreed with Usagi as
they walked through the park. The morning sun made her
squint a little bit but didn't seem to be bothering the
blonde. It was probably because Usagi still wasn't used
to being up so early on a Saturday morning.
" I know, Mako-chan. Wouldn't you think it was
strange to see someone who died nearly two years ago?"
" She didn't die," she commented as she stopped
to see if there was some way to put down the cover of
the stroller to shield Minako's eyes against the bright
light. She shouldn't have even bothered because the child
was still asleep. " Rei-chan said that she disappeared
without a trace. What I don't like is the day it
happened."
Usagi's face fell for a moment at the reminder
of that day in June nearly two years ago. She wasn't
the only one who had died. Makoto had been among the
vanquished. The child in the stroller was possibly the
only reason that they were alive this day.
" Rei feels that it's related to us somehow," she
explained. " The fire didn't tell her anything conclusive,
though."
" I hate this part," the taller young woman growled,
smacking the fist of her right hand into the palm of her
left in frustration. " I hate knowing that something is
going to happen, and not knowing what."
" Mako-chan," she said as she saw the look on her
friend's face. She pulled her over to a bench that was
shaded by a tree and sat her down. " Maybe it will just
be another golem."
" I hope so," she suddenly grinned. " I could
really stand taking out some aggressions out on one of
them. They're not bright but they are resistant to
damage."
They laughed together at her joke and relaxed
for a few minutes. The child stirred in her sleep and
the brunette looked in on her again with a smile on her
face.
" I owe her a lot, you know,- " she began when
the blonde interrupted her.
" Would you have made the same choice that she
did?" she asked Makoto, indicating the child.
" Yes, Usagi-chan," she sighed. The other had
similar conversations with Usagi recently about the
same subject. It was only a matter of time until she
got around to asking her this question. " I don't know
how she did it, but I would have done the same."
" Why, Mako-chan?" she nearly cried out. " Why
are you all so eager to die for me?"
She threw an arm around the blonde's shoulders
and pulled her against her before going on.
" I'm not all that eager to die, Usagi-chan.
Especially not right now. Still, I wouldn't have anything
now if it wasn't for you, and the others feel the same
way. If there wasn't any other way to do it, I'd give up
my life for yours. We all would."
" Why am I so-" she began to protest when a finger
was laid across her lips, silencing her.
" Stop it, Usagi-chan," she said. " You're our
friend. It's not because you're the princess. You've
given so much to us over the years that we'd do it in
order to make sure that you're all right. We want you
to have some of the happiness that you've given us the
chance to have. You have to stop dwelling on that,
Usagi-chan.
" Enough of this, though. It's too nice today
for talk like that, and too early."
She pulled the blonde to her feet and got her
walking along the path that meandered around the lake
at the center of the park. There were a few joggers out
this early in the morning, but the crowds would only
come a little later in the day. She kept up a flow of
small talk to keep her occupied and to cheer her up
until they came to the cart of a street vendor and
bought two cups of tea.
" Now, Usagi-chan," she added after they resumed
their stroll. " Today is supposed to be a special one.
I want you to cheer up, all right?"
" All right, Mako-chan," she automatically responded,
but her eyes took a few minutes to brighten up. It was too
nice a morning to be down and her natural, sunny disposition
finally came through. " You're awfully cheerful this
morning. Did everything go all right last night with
Hiro?"
" You mean 'my hero' ?" she giggled at the play
on words and then got a wistful look on her face. " Yes,
it did, but he left this morning and won't be back until
the end of the break. His parents want him to go, and he's
close with his relatives in Nagasaki."
" So, would you call your first real date with him a
success?"
" Yes, you little matchmaker. We've seen movies
together a few times before and such, but it was our
first real date last night. I had a good time."
" That's great, Mako-chan," she exclaimed. " It
seems that running into your sempai last month was a
good thing, then."
" Oh, yes," she laughed heartily. " I was so hung
up on him that it was funny, and he made an absolute fool
of himself that day when he saw me pushing this
stroller. He was thinking that she was his child,
and started talking about marriage.
"I needed that, Usagi-chan. I was able to finally
see just how much of a fool I was to have done that to
myself over someone like him. After that, the idea of
dating other guys didn't seem to be so strange, and I
wasn't holding anyone up to a false standard that I'd
built up over the years."
" I'm really glad, Mako-chan. I'm glad you're
finally over him."
The tolling of a church bell in the distance made
the taller girl check her watch and gasp in surprise.
" I didn't realize that it was so late! I've got
to get going, Usagi-chan. The cooking part is done, but
I'll still have to assemble and pack a lot of stuff. Could
you wait here a few minutes for Michiru? I told her to
check the park first before going to my house to pick her
up."
" Certainly, Mako-chan," she agreed, nodding her
head. " Ami-chan and I need to drop by school to see the
test results, and then I'm free until twelve. I'll see
you later."
The brunette scowled at the mention of tests, but
then gave her a quick smile before running off to her
apartment. Makoto had volunteered to do a lot of work
for today and would need the time to get everything
ready.
************************************************
He glared at the book, but it still refused
to give up the secrets that it held between it's
covers. His coffee had grown cold as well. All in
all, it hadn't been a good morning.
This library had almost become his second home
over the last year and a third he had been researching.
Despite his intentions, the puzzle here had drawn him
in. He pushed himself backwards, allowing the chair to
roll back a meter from the desk. His eyes acknowledged
the size of the room and how many books he still had to
go through.
The house was in one of the very affluent
neighborhoods of Tokyo. Michiru had been the one to
discover it while going through Setsuna's records. It
was one of several houses that they didn't know of her
having and was part of a series of safe-houses. The
fact that there were two libraries had caught her eye.
Ami had been called in when they found out what
the second, smaller library had dedicated to. All of
these houses had extensive libraries that were mainly
devoted to reference materials. If you wanted to find
out just about anything, one of these libraries was
the place to go. The one in this house had been a
great deal of help to him.
The second library here was devoted to works on
magic. Michiru and Ami had tried and failed to learn
anything of substance there and had called him in. He
was the closest they had to someone who could actually
manipulate magic. The others used it, but they didn't
know how they did.
His time had been spent going through all the books
and he averaged about two to three hours a day on a
regular basis in addition to going to college. Usagi
had tried to help him at first until he gently sent her
away. She meant well, but was a distraction here.
The selection at the library covered just about
any comprehensive work in the field for the last three
hundred years. Most of the authors were fakes or
charlatans, and only a few were by writers concerned
with rational analysis of the subject. Some were
originals and some reproductions, but all of them
had one distinct drawback.
The problem was that none of them actually could
prove that magic existed, let alone use it. His
conversations with Kunzite when he started had helped
him to prove his theory about that point. That would
mean, according to logic, that none of the books could
help him to learn anything about the subject.
Unfortunately, there were enough kernels of
wisdom hidden among the chaff to make him go through
all of them. His old mentor had been able to guide
him at first, but it was getting harder to contact
him as time went on. He calculated he would only have
a few more conversations with Kunzite until he could
no longer manage to make the connection between the
living and the dead.
Kunzite's power had helped to make the contact
possible. Jadeite and Zoicite were only reachable a
few times until their stones didn't react to him anymore.
Nephrite managed an even dozen. They were only able to
cover the basics that they taught him long ago, but
anything was better than the search through the books
or waiting to remember.
The book that he was glaring at had a very obscure
section that hinted at actually having some real meaning.
He picked up his notes again and studied them, along with
consulting his database on the computer. Ami would come
by once a week and do the work involved in setting up the
cross-referenced system based on his notes that would
really yield results.
His watch chimed, reminding him of the hour. He'd
have to leave in two hours to pick up Usagi and go to the
park. He stood and stretched for a few minutes before going
over to the side of the library that held the books he had
gone through. Something was nagging at him about the book
on the desk.
Somewhere on that set of shelves was the clue he was
looking for. He was getting very close to something
important but he lacked the piece of the puzzle that would
let him get a glimpse of the total picture. All he needed
was a hint of where it was. All he wanted was something
that would prove him wrong.
His next decision was almost one of desperation. Ami
gave him an updated printout of the list of books he had
covered. Taking it out, he cut it into equal sized pages
and taped them together into a rough square. Then he
smoothed it out on top of one of the large tables in the
middle of the room and climbed up so he was sitting
cross-legged next to it.
Several minutes of steady breathing calmed his body
while his meditative exercises calmed his mind. He slipped
off the necklace he wore under his shirt. There was a ring
on it, a plain silver band set with a teardrop shaped
piece of turquoise.
The ring was the only thing that he had that
belonged to his mother in this time. He still couldn't
remember her actual face. Only the photographs came to
his mind when he tried. The ring had survived the fire
that had destroyed everything else in the car.
He was hoping that it would serve as a link to
his mother in the past. She had been rumored to have
the gift of prophecy and he was in need of some kind
of guidance. Maybe her gift had been passed on to him
somehow, and he intoned a brief prayer that it be so.
Closing his eyes, he extended the hand that held
the chain, letting the ring swing to and fro underneath
it. He started in a slow, deliberate spiral pattern that
would bring the ring over each part of the chart.
A strange feeling made him stop at one point and
set the ring down. He only opened his eyes long enough
to make a small mark on the paper with a pen before he
closed his eyes again. The chart was turned several times
at random until he had no clear idea which side was
towards him. After that, he did the same test again.
It took him ten more minutes to repeat the exercise
two more times. He'd kept his eyes closed the whole time
after making that first mark. A bead of sweat dropped from
his hair, a sign of the effort that the concentration on
the simple spell had taken from him. He
didn't yet have perfect faith in this method, but it might
be a start for him.
The marks were all on one section of one page, which
gave him a glimmer of hope that he had done the exercise
correctly. The names were familiar to him, so he took a
few of those books down at random to skim over them for
some hint of why they were indicated.
The fifth book gave him an idea and a reference to
one of the books that he hadn't read yet. He took out the
book that was mentioned and skimmed over it to acquaint
himself with the contents. He wouldn't have the time to
read it today, but a mention of a tribe of Australian
aborigines caught his eye. The practice the book said
they employed was a new one to him, so he wrote a note
to put this new book into his queue of ones to be read
and walked down the hallway to the main library.
Thick carpets muffled his footsteps as he opened
the doors and walked to the computer. It only took a
moment to boot up and give him a list of books that
had the information he desired.
The first one was an old book that was first
published in 1953. The notes on the computer mentioned
that the descriptions were accurate but that the author's
conclusions were in question in view of the decisions
reached in a more recent work. He opened it carefully
because of the old spine and almost jumped when a slip
of paper that was yellow with age fell to the floor.
Endymion-sama,
Please join me upstairs in the observation room.
I'd like to speak with you in private.
************************************************
" Hi, Ami-chan!" Usagi called out, waving at
her friend.
" Good morning," Ami cheerfully replied. " Are
you ready to see how you did?"
" I guess," the blonde grinned. " I've been a
little nervous about this one, but I think that it's
been a force of habit for so long to be worried rather
than actually being worried."
Ami laughed at the humor in her voice and started
walking with her to the bulletin board outside the school
offices. Her sandals tapped out a steady beat on the
pavement until they took a short cut across the grass.
" I'm hoping to have broken eighty percent,
Ami-chan," Usagi said after a few minutes. They would
have normally gotten the test results yesterday, but
there was some sort of delay in getting their tests
graded and the results would go up on a Saturday.
" That would be great if you did," she smiled.
Usagi had come a long way in her studies, although Ami
didn't like to think about the reasons why. This
turnaround had come in the semester following Minako's
death. Usagi was doing much better in her classes, but
her reasons for doing better were a source of worry for
Ami. She should be studying to make herself better.
" Hey," she exclaimed, eager to change the
subject. " There's your new boyfriend."
" Ami-chan!" Usagi complained. " Shino-san is
not, I repeat, not my new boyfriend."
The young man at the board turned and waved as Ami
giggled. He wore the older style of school uniform in
black with a high collar rather than the shirt and tie
that were currently preferred. He had short, black hair
and was taller than the girls, but not by too much.
The gossip said that he didn't have many friends
because of the accident. Shino Takayama had been the
only survivor of a car wreck that had killed his natural
parents. Head trauma had robbed him of his memories of
the time before he was sixteen. He could read and write,
for example, but he didn't remember going to school to
learn it. This was his second semester at their school.
Green eyes were covered with another stigma in the
minds of most of the students at the school. He wore
glasses, and while they weren't as bad as the ones like
Umino wore, they were bad enough. He was considered
different. Usagi had been one of the few to try and
befriend him. They got along well with each other and
even had some classes together.
" Hi, Shino!" Usagi called out.
" Hi, Shino-san," Ami respectfully added.
" Usagi-chan, Ami-chan, " he slightly bowed to
them, more out of respect than formality. Ami had been
one of the others that had looked beyond the gossip,
although a lot of it had been at Usagi's prompting at
first. He had even reminded Mako-chan of her sempai
for about a week. " I'm not too surprised at the
results today."
" As always, Ami-chan gets to put another notch
on her pencil case," Usagi drawled, making her friend
blush. " How'd you do, Shino?"
" The usual," he admitted. " Good in math and
science and I flopped in the arts again. I hate those
subjects. Math has one answer, not all this stuff about
how you feel and if the teacher happens to agree with
you today."
Ami stepped up to look over the lists that showed
the exams for several subjects and was joined by the
others.
" Shino-san," she said. " Second on two of the
lists isn't just good. That's great work."
" Ami-chan," he blushed slightly. " Please, don't
call me that. I'm not used to it and I'd rather my
friends didn't use it when referring to me. Besides,
my scores aren't all that great. Great would have been
beating you out for the top place."
" All right, Shino," she agreed, still looking
down the list. She had forgotten about that part. He had
been adopted by an American serviceman and his wife. Both
of his parents were fluent in English, but his father had
some troubles with Japanese. Shino had picked up his
father's unease with the honorifics being used among
friends. To him, his using the '-chan' suffix while
addressing them was a sign of their friendship." Still,
you did very well on your tests."
She knew something was up when Usagi started
getting that little smile on her face. It had started
showing up as her grades began to improve. Her eyes
finally found Usagi's scores. They were just a little
higher on the lists than she had been looking.
" Usagi!" she yelled as she grabbed and hugged
her. " An 80.2% average. You did it!"
" Congratulations," Shino said, clapping the blond
on the shoulder.
" I told you, Ami-chan," Usagi exclaimed. " I
thought I did good on those."
" She certainly did," Shino added a few moments
later and began to scan the tops of the lists again
before muttering under his breath. " Again? This is
getting silly."
" I'm sorry?" Ami asked.
" Here," he explained, pointing at the
lists. " The spots for numbers four and five are
held by the same two people again, the same ones
who have been there for just about every test this
year in every subject."
Ami and Usagi looked at the test results with a
good idea of what they would find.
4. Michiru Kaioh
5. Haruka Ten'ou
" You two know them," Shino asked. " What gives
here? I know they were a year ahead of us, but there
is no way that they were held back because of poor
grades."
They traded a quick glance that the boy missed.
" It wasn't academic problems," Usagi hastily
began. " Almost all of their school records were
destroyed when their school blew up a couple of years
ago. They were in an advanced honors program at the
Infinity Academy
" When they were going to be placed into the
regular school system, one of the administrators
expressed some misgivings about their achievements
in that advanced classes and whether they had truly
accomplished what they stated. Michiru and Haruka are
both very proud, and they demanded that they be
allowed to repeat the grade that they almost finished
if the school board had any suspicion that they didn't
properly earn it. That's why they're in our grade."
Usagi breathed a quick smile of relief as it
appeared that Shino had bought the story. Michiru and
Haruka had been in an advanced class at the Infinity
Academy that was teaching at two grades above her own,
it turned out, but they had changed their records and
forced their new school district to let them into Usagi's
grade in order to be near her.
Haruka had been adamant about that after they got
back together following the fights against the magi,
regardless of the difficulties. They didn't even seem
to mind that they were repeating old material. Since
they could easily do the homework, it gave them more
time to help take care of Minako, and allowed Hotaru
to only have to take care of the girl during school
hours.
" That was the school in the middle of that new
business district, the Mugen Delta, right? Did they
ever figure out what happened?" the boy asked.
" Gas main," she and Ami said in unison and then
blushed at their timing. That had been the most plausible
explanation for the destruction of the Infinity Academy.
" Takayama!" a deep voice yelled out suddenly,
making them jump in surprise. A group of four of the
school's baseball players were gathered around them. The
other three students there were moving away from the
coming confrontation.
" Let me guess," Ami said with a sinking feeling.
She'd been on the receiving end of their threats
before. " He ruined the grading curve for your class?"
" Hey," Kawaguchi, the oldest, added. " Guess
who's here as well. It's little Ami Mizuno."
" Good," another rumbled. " I can make sure she
regrets that perfect score in chemistry last year. I
didn't get to play because of her."
" Stop it!" Usagi yelled, springing in between
Ami and one reaching for her. He sneered at her and
shoved her back. She stumbled and fell into the wall
by bulletin board. Her head hit the wall and
everything went black.
***********************************************
He spent several minutes considering the note
itself, let alone the implications of the message. The
paper was clearly older than he was. All the time in
the library had made him into something of an expert on
old paper. It was a heavy sheet of a quality that you
just didn't get today, regardless of the expense. The
watermark was of a company that had probably gone out of
business years ago. The ink was even translucent.
The faded writing was another hint of something
being amiss. It was handwritten English, which
automatically excluded any of the Inner Senshi from
reading it. Ami might be able to decipher it given some
time or her computer, and Minako was too young. That
meant that the people who might run across the note and
understand it were either himself or the Outer Senshi.
Hotaru had gotten a good grasp of the language since
starting to learn it a year ago while Haruka and Michiru
could pass as natives of several countries.
Some other concerns were put aside as he decided
to check this out. He knew the room that the note referred
to. The house was done in a style that imitated a famous
mansion in America, even down to the small sitting room at
the highest point of the roof. He and Usagi had spent quite
a bit of time up there enjoying the view and getting very
close to doing some of the things that they had generally
agreed to wait until she turned eighteen to do again.
He checked the security system as he went to the
stairs leading up to that room and found the alarms still
enabled. That was how he had set them after coming in this
morning to start working. Taking a deep breath, he started
up the stairs and into the room at the top.
All four walls had large windows that gave a
remarkable view of the hills and the city below. There
were four chairs, two couches, one coffee table and one
occupant in the room. He stopped and silently stared in
shock despite the clues that indicated that it was her.
" Your Majesty," she greeted him, inclining her
head and making her dark green hair shimmer in the
morning sunlight. She wasn't wearing her fuku. Instead,
she was clad in a sharp looking, dark pink jacket and
long skirt with a white blouse and boots. As usual, it
looked great on her and was a good complement to her
hair and skin color. " Please, won't you be seated?"
" Setsuna," he stammered, sitting down
automatically. " We... We thought you were dead."
" I'm not," she admitted a moment later and
poured him a cup of tea from the service on a platter
on the table. " I don't even know if I can. That isn't
important, though. I need you to promise something to
me before we go any further."
" I'll try," he cautiously replied.
" Actually," she continued. " Two things. First,
you need to promise me that you won't tell any of the
others about this conversation for several days. Nobody.
Not even Usagi-chan."
" I'm sure you have your reasons and believe their
validity," he said. " I can agree with that for the
moment."
" That's good," she said and then broke into a
smile, one of the few times he had ever seen her do
it. " Now, here's the important part. I want you to
stop moping about today. Your daughter will be seeing
you today for the first time in over a year of her
time. She shouldn't see the face that you've been
wearing for the past few weeks."
" I... " he almost smiled at what she said and
the words of agreement died in his throat. He took a
drink of the tea to give him a moment to recover. Try
as he might, he couldn't keep the look of defeat off of
his face. " It's bad, Setsuna. I think I know where we
all went wrong. I pray every night that it's a mistake,
but I just can't get the idea out of my head."
She stood and walked over to take a seat next to
him. One of her hands took his in a comforting grip. " I'm
sorry, Mamoru-san, but I'm afraid that you're on the
right track with your work."
Setsuna stopped for several minutes to carefully
consider what she was going to say while she comforted
him. Mamoru didn't even notice the time going by. He
was in too much pain from what he was realizing. She
used one of the napkins on the tray to wipe away a
line of tears on his face.
" We all have a great deal of power, Mamoru-san.
Power that comes with a great deal of responsibilities.
We have to meet the obligations that our position demands
of us."
" Why her?" he whispered. " She's already done so
much for so many people. They don't have any idea of what
she has gone through for them, and now she has to do
this?"
" Are you so sure that she wouldn't agree to it?"
she asked. " You've seen her give so much of herself. Has
she ever hesitated to make someone else's life better,
and do you think that she's not going to do the same
thing again if it comes down to it?"
He mutely shook his head.
" There's something else, isn't there?"
" Yes," he finally forced himself to admit it and
sighed. " I don't love the princess. I don't love Sailor
Moon. I fell in love with a dear, sweet girl by the name
of Usagi Tsukino. I love her more than I do life
itself. Why do I have to give her up?
" Why does she have to give herself up?"
************************************************
The sound of glass breaking brought her to a few
moments later. The back of her head hurt and she could
feel moisture on her scalp. Shino was curled up on the
ground a couple of meters away and was clutching his
stomach. His nose was bleeding, and Kawaguchi was
stepping on his glasses. She could feel a few tears
running down her face. Sympathy for him, she decided,
or maybe just the pain.
The one who had shoved her was named Takeru. He
was stepping towards Ami, who was standing by her with
her back to him and looking down at her. Ami had her
transformation wand in the palm of her hand, hidden
from the view of the others. Usagi almost gasped in
surprise at the look on her face. She had never before
seen anger in Ami's eyes.
" No!" she yelled out as a movement caught her
eye, desperately hoping that it sounded more like a
command instead of a scream of fear or pain. Anything
to stop her. This wasn't worth it.
Behind one of the ones in the back, Hotaru put
away the Glaive. She had been about to use it to deadly
effect. Instead, she kicked his knee from the side as
she walked past him and he went down screaming. Another
two steps put her right behind Kawaguchi, who had knelt
down and was cocking his arm back to hit Shino again.
She hooked her arm around his and stopped the
blow. He grunted and tried to break free, turning slightly
towards her as he strained against her grasp. Her arm
didn't move. She shifted her weight and brought her knee
up under his chin, knocking him out cold.
The other one who had been watching was already in
flight. Ami had turned back around at the sounds that were
the result of Hotaru's intervention. She could see that
Takeru had frozen in shock as Hotaru simply stared at him.
It was the same look on her face that they had seen at a
planetarium just before she had been possessed. Hotaru's
face promised mayhem and that she was very capable of
delivering it.
Ami took advantage of it by walking around in front
of him and kicking him in between the legs. He'd be in
pain, but it was better than what Hotaru might have done
to the one who had actually hurt Usagi.
" Shino," Usagi exclaimed and staggered over
towards him. Hotaru stopped her before she had even
gone three steps. A warm hand was gently pressed against
the back of her head and the pain receded. It was very
soothing and she could feel the power that Hotaru was
using.
" Wait a few moments before getting up after a
head wound, Usagi-san," she whispered to the blonde. " I
need to make sure that you're all right first. Luckily,
it was just a little scrape from the wall."
She helped her sit down next to him and told her
to stay there for a few minutes before she walked over
to the water fountain. Ami was kneeling on the other
side of the boy and was helping him to sit up.
" You shouldn't have done that, Usagi-chan," he
admonished her and then smiled suddenly. " Thank you."
" Are you all right?" she asked him as he looked
around on the ground. Ami handed him the frames to
his glasses and he sighed in exasperation.
" It's just a bloody nose," he said as he
examined the frames. " I rolled with the one to my
stomach and acted like it was worse than it was. They
usually don't do anything when I'm on the ground,
though."
He inclined his head in gratitude when Hotaru
came back and handed him a wet handkerchief. " Thanks,
Hotaru-chan."
" Shouldn't we tell the school administration?" Ami
asked while he cleaned up his face.
" No," the girl with the black hair smiled. " You
didn't see who was watching the whole thing. Umino's
protoge` saw everything. I talked to him over by the
water fountain. The whole school will know he was
beaten up by a girl before homeroom on Monday."
Shino laughed at that, clearly amused. " I've been
in the same math class as Kawaguchi ever since I got
here. He's tried pushing me around before this, but this
is a far better revenge than ruining his grades."
" Usagi-san," Hotaru quietly said, catching her
attention. She tapped her watch.
" Shino," she asked while getting up. " Are you
going to be all right? I have to be going. I've got an
appointment that I can't miss."
" Yes," he smiled as he stood up. " I'm sorry you
got dragged into this."
" I'll make sure that these three are all
right," Hotaru added. " You're going to be late,
Usagi-san."
" I'd best be going, too," the boy added,
giving a little bow of gratitude towards
Hotaru. " Thank you."
" Bye, Shino," Usagi said as he walked off.
" Does this happen much?" Hotaru asked in a
cold tone of voice.
" A few times," Ami admitted. " It's usually
just some verbal abuse and a few vague threats. I
just ignore them."
The girl took a deep breath and held it for
several seconds before exhaling and relaxing. She
turned to the others. " I guess it's a good thing
that my train was early and I decided to walk to
your house."
" How's your father, Hotaru-chan," Usagi asked
as she picked up her purse and made sure everything
was still there.
" He's doing well," she replied. " I hardly
had a chance to see him this time, but I had only
gone up there to drop off some documents and a few
books he wanted. We had dinner and talked for a while.
That new bullet train line to the north sure is a big
help."
She looked to make sure that Shino had turned
the corner around the side of the building before
continuing. " Ami-chan, stay with her until Mamoru-san
picks her up. I've got a funny feeling about today for
some reason. I'll see you at the park. Now, get going
before you're late."
The two girls complied, walking off towards Usagi's
house to meet her real boyfriend. Hotaru got one boy on
the ground to get up. It only took a single mean look
to give him all the inspiration he needed to hobble away.
The big one, she realized after taking a closer look,
would be out for a while longer. That just left the
one who was still writhing in pain.
" Hello, Takeru," she greeted him as she picked
him up by the front of his jacket and hoisted him to
his feet with one hand. He tried to run and realized
that she was actually holding him a few centimeters
above the ground. " We have some business to discuss
somewhere private."
To his astonishment, she jumped up to the top of
the walkway as lightly as if she was jumping up a couple
of stairs. She didn't seem to notice that she was
carrying a guy who outweighed her by about thirty to
forty kilos. The next jump took them to the top of
the administration building. He began to panic as she
walked around to the other side of the building and
held him out over the ledge to dangle above the ground
two stories below the whole way there.
" You hurt her," she softly declared. He would
have preferred a scream of rage to that quiet
voice. " You made her cry."
Her violet eyes bored into his mind. He couldn't
look away. He wanted to scream. Nothing came out of
his mouth.
" If you ever touch her again, if you ever hurt
her again or cause her any pain, I'll be back. I won't
be so nice, either. The next time you'll be dead."
She released him and he was finally able to scream
as he fell. It was like he had been freed from a spell.
His arms and legs frantically began to move as he tried
to run in mid-air. She smiled at the look on his face as
he fell into the overflowing garbage bin below, imagining
just how ripe he was going to smell.
As she walked away to another side of the building
and jumped down to the ground, another person kept a
close watch on her from the shadows of the air-conditioner
on the top of the gym. It was a much taller building and
gave her an excellent view of what had just occurred and
the fight that had preceded it.
The sun hit her as she stepped to the edge. Her
long, auburn hair glowed in the morning sun that picked
out the gold highlights of the black clothes and armor
she wore. This promised to be interesting, she thought
with a smile.
************************************************
" I wasn't in any danger, Mamo-chan," she
pleaded. " I was with Ami-chan and Hotaru-chan."
" I know, Usako. That still doesn't make it any
easier for me, though. I should have been there sooner."
" Listen," she scolded him and pushed him down
onto the bench nearest the dock in what had become
their favorite park. She bent down towards him with
a stern look on her face and suddenly kissed him. They
held it for a few minutes before she sat down next to
him and spoke in a quiet voice. " This is a happy day,
Mamo-chan. Don't feel like that. If I was in real trouble,
you would have been there. You're always there when it
counts."
" Thank you, love," he whispered pulling her head
down onto his shoulder and putting an arm around
her. " You always can make me feel better."
They stayed that way for several minutes before
noticing another nervous couple had arrived in the same
area. Artemis was about to wear a circular path in the
grass from his pacing in a circle around Luna, who
calmly sat under a nearby tree and waited.
" Seven minutes," he said in response to her
unasked question after he glanced at his watch. " We're
not the only ones waiting for a daughter, either. I
guess we had-"
He sprang forward while Usagi screamed in horror
as a patch of pink clouds suddenly appeared high over
the dock that stretched out into the pond. Normally
they took a few moments to form, and it also was only
a few meters above the water. They had never seen it
happen above the hard, wooden surface of the dock.
She came into existence fifteen meters up in the
air. He was in mid-leap as she plummeted towards the
ground. She had just managed to start to get into the
correct position to take a fall when his arm caught her
around the middle.
They landed in the pond with a thunderous splash
as Usagi came running up along with the cats. She didn't
stop and dove in after them. Artemis nearly didn't stop
either but thought better of it. They had seen only a girl
falling from the sky, and not a girl and a cat.
" Chibi-usa-chan!" she cried out as she broke the
surface near them. To her consternation they were beginning
to laugh as they looked at each other and then he pulled
the girl into an embrace. They were both either unhurt or
too happy to see each other to notice any injuries.
She found the water there was deep enough to make
her stand on the tips of her toes while he had his
shoulders above the water. Usagi made to embrace them
as well until the girl pulled away from her.
" I want to be with my Daddy," she tried to say
to her in a stern tone of voice and utterly failing. The
giggles were giving her true feelings away. " You said
I'm growing so quickly that you won't buy me any new
clothes."
Usagi began to look crestfallen. That was the
moment the girl chose to jump away from her father and
onto her. Both went under for a moment and came up
holding each other and laughing. Usagi gave her a
quick, fierce hug before shoving her towards the dock.
" Here you go," Mamoru said as he boosted Usagi
up to where she could climb up onto the dock on her
own and did the same for Chibi-usa.
" Chibi-usa-chan?" she whispered in surprise as
they stood up. The pink ponytails had been about ten
centimeters longer even before they had gotten wet,
but the biggest surprise was that the tips of the girl's
odango came up just over her own shoulders.
" Mama," she sniffled and threw herself into her
mother's arms for a proper hug. They were both crying as
Mamoru came over and wrapped them up in his arms as well
for a few minutes before nudging them towards the
walkway.
" Small Lady?" Luna ventured from where the cats
now sat, safely away from any of the wet and dripping
humans. Chibi-usa slipped from her mother's embrace and
walked over to them. She knelt down and gave each a kiss
on the forehead.
" Your daughter sends her love and regrets," she
told them as she fondly looked at them.
" I take it there were some problems, then?" Luna
asked politely, but she was plainly hoping for some
information about her daughter.
" I'm probably a grandfather already," Artemis
muttered, half in jest and half in fear. Luna almost
smacked him in the back of his head.
" The last time I went home," the little girl
began as she took a seat between the other two sitting
on the bench. " The transit was pretty bad for both of
us. This one coming back was even worse. Diana would
have had a very tough time with it right now."
" The time-keys are still working, but obviously
not as smoothly," Artemis commented.
" How could you ever guess?" the young girl wryly
added while looking down at the plain, thick white dress
she wore. It was functional but nearly shapeless. " We
didn't even know if anything I took with me to this time
would make it back since the stuff I took forward the
last time didn't survive the trip. Usagi-chan made
this from the drapes, I think, and now it's all wet
and ruined."
" Chibi-usa-chan," Mamoru said, and the girl
turned her gaze from Usagi, who was on the receiving
end of a teasing look, to the two cats. " Diana is
all right, correct?"
" I'm sorry," she apologized to them. " Diana
is fine except that she's having a tough time adjusting
to being able to change into a human. We all thought
that the trip would be too much stress for her right
now."
" Couldn't they send her later?" Luna wistfully
asked. The girl took a deep breath before answering.
" Not... not without Pu. We're conserving the
key's energy. We haven't heard from her and Mama...
Mother doesn't want to force the gates open. This isn't
the first time Pu hasn't answered the door to the gates
in a long time, although she usually tells us to leave
her alone first."
" I'm sorry, Chibi-usa-chan, but we haven't seen
her," Usagi whispered and then sadly shook her head. The
words failed her. The young man had a pained look on his
face as well, but the two girls missed it since they were
looking at each other.
" C'mon, everybody," Mamoru spoke in an effort to
cheer them up. " The car's right over there. Let's go
home and get cleaned up, then we can get this girl into
a mall. I know that none of her old things are going to
fit anymore."
The news of a quick shopping trip lightened the
spirits of both of the young ladies as they walked back
to the car and ignored the glances of curious passers-by
who wanted to stare at them for being so soaked and so
happy.
************************************************
" Pain is a fascinating sensation," he commented
as they sat on the roof of the observation deck of the
Tokyo Tower. The same winds that blew her long hair and
his single, thin braid made the tower gently sway
underneath them.
" I don't have any idea of what you see in it," she
sniffed. " I was human and had more pain than I could
ever want to deal with. Why do you seek it out?"
" I don't quite 'seek it out'," he replied, idly
straightening the collar of the black school uniform
he wore. " It is interesting to experience it, however.
I consider it very insightful."
" We don't needs insights into their minds," she
burst out. " Why don't you just let me take care of it?
The one who was reborn _may_ be a danger to me, but
the rest are no match for the power we've been given."
" Patience, Flare," he said in an attempt to
placate her anger. " There are two of them who have
been reborn and this isn't about defeating them in
battle, or at least not yet. I want them to react in
a certain manner, and that takes more time."
" Are you so sure that they will jump through
your hoops?"
" Actually," he grinned in response, his tawny
eyes sparkling. " This method will be far easier than
my first idea. I used to think that I might just make
them renounce her, but I've seen the error in that
approach. It wouldn't be painful enough to force them
like that.
" They will voluntarily do it, however, when we
give them the right reasons. Keep with the plan about
the genius girl, and light off the first warning shot
later today. All we need to do is to make them realize
the cost of supporting her. If we make it too painful
for them to go on, they'll abandon her."
" And if they don't?"
" They will die, Flare," he declared. " All of
them. Every living thing on this planet will be dead.
Except for her, of course. It will be enjoyable to
watch her suffer over a few eons."
***********************************************
The cool, clear water closed over his head as
released his hold on the rail and let himself begin
to sink into the depths of the lagoon. A silvery
stream of bubbles in front of him told him that
Madison was already on her way down. It wasn't too
surprising she was in a hurry, he grinned behind his
mask and glanced up at the receding surface.
They had spent the better part of seven months
waiting to get all the permits to do this dive. The
site wasn't hot any longer, but many of the ships
were sunk with full loads of ordinance, and that
made it dangerous to be here. Only a fool would think
otherwise about entering the waters off of Bikini
atoll.
Despite the safe readings on their Geiger counter,
he had found himself apprehensive as he prepared for the
dive. The cameras were ready, but the cameraman wasn't.
He didn't think that anyone could be unaffected by being
here. He was about to approach ground zero of a nuclear
blast and see firsthand the fruits of Operation
Crossroads.
Shortly after the second World War, the United
States had moored a number of ships off of the atoll
in order to see what the effects of a nuclear attack
would be on the vessels he was about to film. Most of
them had been severely damaged, and then the second
test, an underwater blast, had finished the job. The
few surviving ships had probably sank after one of
the nearly two dozen more atomic explosions, and the
entire area had been off limits for years.
That was the main reason that they had wanted
to do a dive here. There were several interested
parties who wanted a copy of the tapes. They ranged
from the production companies that made documentaries
for cable TV to the organizations for the sailors
assigned to each particular ship. The area was in
pristine condition from having so few divers allowed
to enter it.
This was going to be one of their big breaks,
he realized as he checked the camera and his gear.
Producers who made documentaries for both programs
about diving and history had been calling them ever
since the word got out that they had been allowed to
make the descent and film the wreckage. He'd start
with the Saratoga, which should be below them.
Madison had stopped about fifty feet below
the surface and he could see her smile despite her
mask. She waved her arm around and gave him the
thumbs-up. He agreed with a nod. The water clarity
was incredible today, and it was bright enough for
him to make a quick measurement with one of the
waterproof gauges.
He gave her a thumbs-up of his own. It was
nearly as bright as at the surface on some of the
days they had filmed they had filmed the Great
Barrier Reef in Australia, and they were a lot
deeper right now. The sun was still rising, he
recalled, and that must be why it was getting
even brighter. This was certainly going to be
a wonderful day.
************************************************
" I think these are done," she decided and popped
one of the shu mai into her mouth. Haruka gasped in
surprise at the temperature and started rapidly exhaling
to cool off the dumpling.
" It serves you right," Michiru giggled as she
handed her iced tea to the taller woman. Haruka quickly
took a drink and sighed in relief before finishing the
dumpling.
" Someone had to see if they were done," she
protested, and tried to make her voice sound like she
was hurt by her friend's comment. She knew she was
failing miserably, so she turned back to the fire,
closed the lid of the steamer and sulked. It had only
taken her a few hours to make the steamer and the
stand out of some spare metal at her garage the
previous morning.
Michiru stood and brushed a few bits of grass
from her pale blue sundress before walking over behind
Haruka. The blonde tensed up at first when she began
to massage her shoulders and neck, but then relaxed
and loudly exhaled.
" You're as tight as a drum," Michiru whispered
as she looked around them. They were at the top of a
hill in a park near her parent's old house. Since it
became a gated community last year the number of
visitors to the park had dropped, and they almost
had it to themselves. The only other visitors were
a few families down by the base who hadn't even tried
joining them at the top.
Makoto and Ami were setting up a tray with plates
and condiments several meters away in the spot with the
better view. The steamer they were keeping an eye on
needed to be on a more level surface, which was the
reason for their being away from the others. Rei was
splitting her attention between watching Hotaru helping
Minako to try and walk on the sloping grass without
falling down and setting up a carafe of hot tea.
She leaned down and straightened the collar on
Haruka's white shirt before giving her a brief embrace.
The other woman leaned back against her for a moment,
drawing in some of the calmness that surrounded Michiru.
They both felt that they were going to need it today.
*****************************
The End of the Beginning {1/3}
A Sailor Moon fanfic by Tim Nolan.
e-mail: nomad@cyberverse.com
Please see the comments following the story.
author's notes
1. Warning! There is a small amount of cursing in this story.
2. This story is very much tied in with my previous works.
They should be read in the following order.
Awakening, part 1
Awakening, part 2
Obligations
The End of the Beginning
3. The first part of the prologue happens right after the
ending of 'Obligations'. The second part of the prologue
happens several months after that. The rest of this
story happens almost two years after 'Obligations.'
The Inner Senshi are seventeen and soon to be eighteen.
4. This story is not following the Japanese school system
for when classes are in session.
5. The continuity does not include the second part of
'Stars', the fifth season of Sailor Moon in Japan.
The story presented in 'Obligations' happens shortly
after the Nephrenia arc of 'Stars', but after that,
the anime goes one way and I go another.
6. There are ideas and concepts from the manga involved in
in these stories even though I do generally follow the
anime storyline for the most part.
7. quick translations of Japanese terms
ojii-san : grandfather
hime-chan : princess
onee-san : older sister
***
The End of the Beginning.
There's no time for us
There's no place for us
What is this thing that fills our dreams
yet slips away from us?
There's no chance for us
It's all decided for us
This world has only one sweet moment
set aside for us.
Who wants to live forever?
-Queen, from 'Who Wants to Live Forever?'
Prologue.
Was it the right decision? He considered the question
as his brother cast off the guise he had assumed for this
'visit', as their conversation would have seemed to another
observer, and vanished. His other siblings had only recently
begun experimenting with taking human form, something that
he had been doing for a long time. His experience at it let
him conceal what he had been doing from the others.
The room he floated in was small and dimly lit, with
a cold, bare, stone floor and walls. Several candles provided
the illumination but the flames that topped them didn't
flicker. The roof and a few dilapidated benches were the only
things made of wood until he waved his hand slightly,
dispelling the illusion below him. A bed appeared, one as
old and worn as the benches. He put the staff that was
resting across his knees down next to the occupant and
considered his problems and his solutions.
A long, long time ago, even for them, a cry in the
darkness had made them aware of each other and that it was
possible to communicate. One of their sisters was dying, it
turned out, and there was nothing they could do to help
her. The best they could do was to tell her she would
always be remembered for giving them this wonderful gift.
He hadn't fully agreed with his sibling, however. There
had to be something he could do, and it took some time for
his sister to actually die. She had tried not to show that
it hurt, but the cries of pain she occasionally let slip
still haunted him even now. The problem came from the fact
that her corporeal body was being disrupted by it's
proximity to her largest brother.
Without that link to the physical world, she was
fading away. There was no way for the others to take her
place, or to share theirs with her. He seemingly ignored
the others most of the time, garnering a reputation for
being slow and deliberate as he pondered this problem. In
truth, he had been devoting his time to searching for
something he could do to help her. His solution may not
have been elegant, but it had almost been in time.
The others were still fascinated by their newly
found ability to converse among themselves, and weren't
aware of what he was going to do. It was just as well, he
later realized. They would have tried to stop him, just on
the basis of the risk that he was about to take.
His sister's fate had proved that they could die. Her
spirit, the essence that made her alive, was fading. She
could no longer keep it safe, but if someone else couldn't,
what if something else could? The danger came from the fact
that he was as tied to his body as much as the others. However,
if his sister's essence could be separated from her physical
self, shouldn't his be able to be separated as well?
He settled his thoughts and gently pushed all but a
tiny fraction of himself free of the physical, leaving that
portion as an anchor. The ease of it astounded him, and
resolving to study this more in the future, he willed
himself to his sister's remains. They had already started
to cool, with only the centers of the four largest pieces
still being warm. He could now see that most of her was
lost, but not everything. Some of her essence still remained,
along with most of her power, and he gathered it together
to work with.
Choosing those four pieces due to their size, he bound
some of her energy and an equal portion of her spirit into
each one. Those pieces will survive a long, long time. This
way, part of what was left of her would be in her former
place if she was somehow able to return, or they found a
way to return her to life.
The other four he chose, however, were a tiny fraction
of the size of the others even though they had as much power.
These four he brought with him as he returned to his body,
and was grateful that he was actually able to make it back.
There had been no way to test his theory.
It was only later when he and the others who were the
four furthest out from the center began their watch upon the
outer reaches of the system that he realized what those four
items could be used for. The avatars of those four were a
part of that watch as well, and he fashioned three of the
four objects into tools for them to use called talismans.
The ringed one declined the use of one of them for his
avatar, as he had a premonition that it could be unwise.
Therefore, the other three avatars received the
talismans he had fashioned into items out of their legends
since the avatars still didn't know who they received their
power from. The fourth, however, he fashioned into a
contingency if the ringed one's fears were not groundless.
It would be able to call upon not only the power that was
inherent to it, but also that of the three talismans and
the four other reserves of power. If it ever came to it,
the avatars would be even more prepared for any possible
emergency.
" I was a fool," he whispered, looking down on the
woman on the bed. That same power had drawn one group of
enemies, and would probably bring more. Her first real
suffering on his behalf, aside from the drawbacks to her
long life, had come about because during the attack by
those enemies, she stopped time to give two other avatars
the opportunity to finish their mission. He had known what
was going through her mind as she slammed shut the gates
of time at the cost of her life.
She was, in her view, making amends for what she had
done to them. She knew that they had the other two talismans,
but she didn't have any idea of how to remove their heart
crystals in order to gain access to the talismans. The
Queen's sacrifice long ago had bound the items to their
souls as she sent them forward in time.
Their enemies, however, knew how. By forcibly
manifesting the souls of their victims in the shape of
the crystalline constructs they called heart crystals,
those enemies were searching for the talismans. His avatar
knew that it would mean their deaths, but she had awakened
the other two and sent them into battle. It was the only
way to get the talismans.
One part of her, the practical side that had grown
cold and detached over the years, dismissed it as an
acceptable loss. They would fight on until they were
defeated, and then the talismans would be obtained. The
other part of her, the warm side that was usually
subordinate to the other, finally rebelled, gained the
upper hand, and she gave up her life so that they might
live.
He had brought her back from the brink of death,
employing his own control over time to save her. The
evolutionary path of the humans never intended them to
live more than a few score orbits of their homeworld. He
didn't have the luxury of replacing avatars like the
others. It took most of a human lifetime to train her,
and she had a natural ability far beyond any of the
others he had considered. No, he would only have one
avatar, and had even shown her how to fully make use
of her talisman. The others hadn't even done that,
preferring to pass the talismans down from avatar to
avatar without their knowing the true power the devices
held.
In part, it was his way of atoning for all he had
done to her. She had realized and accepted the dangers
she would face and the pain she would bear, and had
agreed to represent him. What he was about to do was
another part of his atonement. This would be the second
time he had done this, and he would do it again. He owed
her that much, at least. She was his first line of defense
against an encroachment upon the realm of time that he had
first glimpsed when he tried to save his sister.
He reached into himself and took a little of his
own life, using it to restore her to full health like he
had done before. He had kept her from truly dying these
two times recently and brought her back here instead,
although it was trickier this last time. The first time
she had merely stopped the flow of time. He had barely
been able to find her this time amid all the strange
convolutions in the fabric of time around her.
He knew what she had done and took a teacher's delight
in the progress of a student and her technical skill. The
reason why she had done it amazed him. He still couldn't
imagine what it would be like to have that same depth of
feeling, or to have that much capacity to care so much
about the welfare of another.
" Welcome back, child," he softly said to her and
sank into the floor as she opened her eyes.
***********************************************
Ten, twenty, thirty, forty thousand, he finished
counting to himself as he walked away and began to
calculate his tip from this bill and how much he would
have to give to the busboy. This job at a very trendy,
very upper-scale steak house was a godsend for his bank
account even if it was only part time, since he filled in
for anyone who was sick.
" Here you go," he said to the cashier, letting the
older man tabulate the totals on the computer and make the
change. These were probably the last customers of the night,
so after returning the change to the table he ducked into
the kitchen to get a cup of decaf coffee and review his
finances.
He loved her dearly, but Usagi had literally been
eating up his savings a little while ago. His last real
contact in the modeling business had retired a few months
earlier, and the jobs that had once supplemented his
other income were gone. He couldn't condone taking her
over to Mako-chan's too many times, even if the tall
girl told him to do so if things were getting tight.
No, he never liked taking charity very much, but
it had been a tough battle between his convictions and
the cash flow until the manager here had called him. One
of his old friends and co-workers had recommended him
to the management of the new place when they were short
handed. The owners were very particular about the level
of service and weren't hiring just anybody. It had been
hard work, but very rewarding financially, and things
were finally starting to look up.
The manager had dropped by earlier on his way
home for the night and handed him an envelope with the
last three night's pay. He was in the process of adding
up all his tips for the evening when a low whistle rang
out as one of the waiters came into the kitchen.
" Gentleman, I am in love."
The person making the statement was a well known
womanizer, not to mention one of the full time waiters. He
glanced into the mirror by the door to make sure his hair
was absolutely perfect. One of the busboys slightly
opened and looked out the doors.
" No way, Ryo. Not with a lady that classy."
" Five thousand yen says that I take her home, and
I'll pay anyone else twice what they bet if I don't," he
confidently stated, and then looked at Mamoru. " Hey,
Chiba! They're in your section. Can I serve them, and do
you want in?"
" Let me see," he smiled and glanced out the doors.
Somehow, he kept a straight face as he turned back. " Ryo,
I've got thirty thousand yen here that says you won't
even make it to the plate if you'll give me three to one
odds."
" Just to make it to the plate? Shit, Chiba. Don't
make me take your money. I'll ask her out in a second. You're
on, man," the younger man sneered and stepped out into
the dining area.
" Are you crazy?" the cook asked him
incredulously. " That boy needs a four poster bed for
all the notches he's racked up."
" No," Mamoru smiled back confidently. " He won't
even try anything. Watch."
It only took a few moments until the now-shaken
younger man came back into the kitchen.
" They want you to serve them, Chiba-san," he
stammered, beginning to blush.
" And... " he added expectantly.
" I... couldn't. I expected her boyfriend to
frighten me off or something, but he didn't even seem
to notice me. She just looked at me, and I couldn't bring
myself to say anything. That chick is scary."
" Hah!" the cook exclaimed in triumph, since he had
bet against the younger man in hopes of getting the odds.
" Don't worry, Ryo," Mamoru consoled him before
going out into the dining area to see what they
wanted. " You can pay it in installments."
" Good evening, ladies," he greeted them. " It's
very nice to see you today. Is there anything I can get
for you?"
" Yes," the sandy-haired blonde drawled back at
him. The leather racing team jacket with the sponsor's
patches she wore was a splash of daring, stylish color
among the dull earth tones that were currently in
fashion. " Your manager."
" Haruka," he cautioned her. " Don't do this. I
need this job."
" You could quite easily buy this entire chain,
Mamoru-san," Michiru gently reminded him.
" Look, I don't want your money," he protested.
Haruka's eyes went cold and she snapped her
fingers loud enough to get the assistant manager to
jump up and hurry over to her. She held up a hand to
stop his inquiry and began to peel off several ten-thousand
yen notes from a roll of them in her pocket.
" We're hiring this gentleman here to be our dinner
companion for the evening. I assume he can be spared from
his regular duties for the occasion. I also want three
rib-eyes out here in ten minutes with all of the trimmings,
and tell your cook he had better live up to the standards
of the first one of these places in Texas. I eat there
whenever I'm in the area, and the owner is a good friend
and a sponsor. Any problems?" she finished coldly,
dismissing him with her eyes.
" No, sir," he stammered and fled back into the
safety of the kitchen.
" Mamoru-san, please, sit down," Michiru asked
and slid over to make some more room for him. He did so,
but warily. This looked to be another of their recent
disagreements. They were always too polite towards him
for it to be called a fight.
" It's not 'our' money, Mamoru," Haruka began,
meeting his gaze. " It belongs to both of you. We're
just the trustees."
" And you can keep on doing that," he cut in. " Usagi
said she'd ask for it if she needed it, and I don't want it."
" No, Michiru," Haruka cut off the turquoise haired
woman as she began to speak, and then looked back at the
young man and caught his gaze. " We've been nice to you
for long enough. It's been six months, Mamoru. Six months
since we almost lost her. That's enough of a vacation. It's
time you started properly doing your part in protecting her."
" What!" he hissed, unconsciously bending the heavy,
silver spoon he had been slowly twirling between his
fingers. Michiru put her hand over his as he began to
stand up and call her out. She took the utensil from his
hands and put her other hand on his forearm to reassure
him.
" Mamoru-san," she implored him, waiting for the
flush of anger to fade from his face. " We've told you
what we found. We can't do anything with any of the books.
We tried. Ami-chan can almost detect it on a regular basis,
and I'm only a little better. We use magic somehow, but
we can't manipulate it. You're the only one of us who can."
He sighed heavily, keeping his thoughts to himself
for the next several minutes until the food arrived. Ami
and Michiru had been very determined after their encounter
with the magi to find out just what they all could do, and
exactly how they did it. They'd drawn a blank, even with
finding a cache of books related to the subject that were
in one of Setsuna's homes.
It had been during that time that while fighting the
magi that he began to experiment more with his own
abilities, and found out that he had much more control
than the Senshi. He had been meaning to help them more
in their experiments, but his studies at school, his
jobs and Usagi had been taking up all his time.
" We've got a proposal for you," Michiru said
after they had been served. " You're the only one who
has a chance of understanding anything in those books.
You already have the most manifestations of power than
any of us."
A puzzled look came across his face. " Me?"
" Roses, the cane, a ranged attack, two forms,
and some type of pre-cognitive abilities tied in with
teleportation," Haruka ticked the examples off on her
fingers, and then picked up the bent spoon. " No matter
when or how, you always were there whenever Usagi-chan
was in trouble. That's magic in anyone's book."
" What do you want me to do, then?" he asked,
carefully looking at both of them in turn.
" We want to hire you, Mamoru. Setsuna wanted all
of you to be able to go to whatever school you wished
without having to work at the same time. Therefore, we'll
take over your tuition, rent and other expenses in exchange
for your working on figuring out just what you do and how
you do it."
" That's basically the same offer I turned down
before," he said apologetically, and gave them a bleak
smile. " Why should I accept it this time? I told you I
don't want your pity."
Haruka's hand hit his face hard enough to rock him
back in his seat. It hadn't been a punch, but a stinging
slap by the back of her left hand. She stood up, eyes
flashing in anger and looking like she was ready to
swing on him again as she made a fist of her right hand
and drew it slightly back. It was several seconds before
she took a deep breath and let the two pieces of silver
that were the spoon fall to the tablecloth from her
right hand.
" Talk to him, Michiru. See if you can get him to
start thinking straight. If that doesn't work, I'll try
hitting him a few more times."
" You deserved that, you know," Michiru commented
as she took another bite of her steak while Haruka
stalked out. A few moments later, the low-pitched roar
of a sportscar engine sped off into the distance.
" I won't do it, Michiru. Not when it's being
offered out of pity. I had to deal with enough of
that in the orphanage."
Her soft, easy laughter distracted him from the
dark mood his thoughts were in. He had an irrational
need to push back when Haruka pushed him, and she had
been doing a lot of that recently. Usagi had designated
the tall woman the tactical leader of the Senshi, and
Haruka had been quick to try and address her perceptions
of their shortcomings. She had been especially hard on
him, in his opinion.
" Mamoru, we never pitied you," she explained,
filling the napkin of the spare place setting with some
ice and handing it to him. " This isn't the two rich
ones lording it over on you. Haruka and I made a lot
of money even before we had met Setsuna, but we never
felt sorry for you because you never had as much.
" This is about taking care of Usagi, and Haruka
is scared by what happened. We got lucky again, and
that's killing her inside. If it hadn't been for
Minako's sacrifice, you and Rei would be the only ones
left right now. Hotaru wasn't going to hold back, and...
well, we won't outlive each other by any great margin."
" Haruka scared?" he echoed, missing what she
had just admitted.
" We're not using to relying on luck, Mamoru," she
continued after taking a sip of wine and pushing her
plate several centimeters away. " It worries both of
us that it came so close to being over. We spent a
long time getting by on our own when we were dealing
with the daemons, and she's not used to relying on
others, or luck. Haruka is also having a problem because
you don't act as dedicated to the princess as she
thinks you should be."
" That's awfully honest but somewhat convoluted," he
admitted a few moments later.
The turquoise haired woman carefully thought out her
next words before continuing. " She doesn't doubt your
desire to protect the princess, but you don't act as overtly
as she does in regards to it," Michiru explained a few
moments later. " Haruka pretends that she isn't hurt by
what happened, but she spent several nights in tears over
her feelings of inadequacy after we got Usagi back."
" And you?" he asked a few moments later. " How do
you feel?"
" I'm better at hiding it than she is," Michiru
smiled at him and took a last bite of the steak before
taking out her purse and touching up her lipstick. " This
isn't for us, Mamoru-san. It's not a ploy to make you feel
bad. We're concerned for her safety, and you're the only
one who can do this.
" There have been five golem attacks ever since we
beat the magi. We can no longer assume that they are all
gone. Their order has come back from the dead before and
you are our only hope in learning how to fight them," she
said, putting one of her hands over his. " Will you work
with us, so we can do our job of protecting her properly?"
" All right," he capitulated a few moments
later. " I'm glad you explained it a little better to
me. I'm still not fond of doing it this way, Michiru,
but I'll do it."
" Thank you," she beamed in gratitude, and then
got up. He took a quick swallow of coffee and got to his
feet as well.
" Do you need a ride?" he offered as they walked
out to the parking lot. " I may have driven off your
escort for this evening."
" That's all right," she smiled and gave him a
quick kiss on his cheek, the one without the bruise. " It
is sweet of you to ask, though."
She pulled her communicator out of her purse. It
beeped softly as she pressed one of the buttons, and
she put it back. " She'll be by in a few minutes. It
was just a matter of letting off some steam. Why don't
you go on and head home, and we can work everything out
tomorrow?"
He was finally persuaded to leave her, and climbed
into the white and blue AC Cobra that he had been loaned
by Haruka while his car was in for repairs and a rebuild
on the engine. With a jaunty salute, he sped off as she
waved good-bye. He was as bad as Haruka when it came to
cars, it seemed.
Her ride pulled into the lot a few minutes later
and rolled to a stop next to the woman. There was a
slight click as the lock on the passenger side
disengaged and she opened the door.
" Well?"
" He'll do it," she confirmed, taking a seat in
the white and yellow roadster.
" How much did you tell him?"
" Everything," she confessed. " He won't say
anything to the others, though. He's too much the gentleman,
and I needed to use it as a scare tactic. You did cry a few
times about it, after all."
" Michiru?" the tall woman asked hesitantly a few
minutes later as they waited at a stop light. Her voice
was unusual; a soft, tentative tone that made Michiru
realize how much something was affecting her. " Next time,
I want to be the good cop. I don't want them to get to set
in their feelings about me. I do care about them and how
they feel."
" Haruka!" she gently laughed, despite the slightly
worried look on her companion's face. " It would never
work, I'm afraid. It would absolutely ruin my own
reputation for being the sweet, gentle and cultured
one.
" Besides, who's going to believe that I would
hit them?"
End - Prologue.
************************************************
The End of the Beginning.
" Here you go, Hotaru-chan," the young woman said,
setting down the tray that held two cups of steaming
Oolong tea. Ami waited for her to take one, and then
picked up the other and gently blew across the surface
to cool it a bit, enjoying the initial feel of the warmth
of the tea through the ceramic cup.
" Thank you, Ami-chan," she replied to the blue
haired girl with a polite smile. " I still don't know
why you need to keep on doing this, though."
" I do it for almost all of us, Hotaru-chan," she
explained. " We're not precisely the same as everyone
else, and I need to keep the records in case we ever
need the medical information."
" You said almost back there," the raven-haired
girl said, seizing a potential opportunity with a quick
smile. " What would it take to be 'almost'?"
Ami laughed in response, taking a sip of tea
before putting it down and opening her computer. She
tapped a few keys and handed it over to the other
young woman.
" Hit ENTER, and you'll see what I mean."
Hotaru did, and watched the computer flash up a
warning and beep at her in an almost annoyed tone.
REQUEST SCAN OF SUBJECT: MEIOU, SETSUNA
REQUEST DENIED
PLEASE ENTER PASSWORD FROM SUBJECT TO CONTINUE
" It did that to me anytime I tried to get a recording
of anything about her," Ami admitted, blushing. " Trust me,
I tried. I started keeping a medical file on each of us right
after Usagi-chan and I first met Rei-chan. Setsuna-san
thought it was a good idea, but wouldn't talk to me about
why my computer says that every time I tried to scan her."
" I miss her," the other young woman admitted with a
sigh.
" We all do, Hotaru-chan," Ami said, putting a
reassuring hand over one of the other girl's. " There
still hasn't been any sign?"
" No. The financial people keep on getting
instructions that they say are hers. It's good advice
as well."
" That's too bad," Ami responded a few moments
later. " Chibi-usa still hasn't gotten over finding out
that the time keys can work without her. She was certain
that when she got called to return to the future that Pluto
was back."
" I know, Ami-chan," she said flatly. " Chibi-usa-chan
will be back in a few days, too, and her heart will break
if there still isn't any sign of her. What do you need me
to do for this, anyway?"
" Well," Ami started, looking around the sitting
room of the penthouse suite in one of the three towers
that overlooked the large, tree-filled park that marked
the remains of the Infinity Academy. " We should go into
your room. It will be a lot more private there."
" We're on the top floor of the tallest building
for kilometers around," Hotaru laughed. She stood up and
slipped the plain black dress she wore over her head. " The
only people who could possible see me would need to be in
a helicopter, Ami-chan."
Ami giggled nervously, blushed and took a drink of
tea. " I guess you're right, but you'll need to take
everything off, Hotaru-chan. You may have stopped growing
again, and I need to have the most accurate information
possible. You're still a unique case."
" All right," Hotaru replied, managing a small
grin. " At least you won't try and make me wear one of
those silly paper robes like my regular doctor will."
She finished undressing as Ami resolutely kept her
eyes on her computer screen and began typing, her many
years of experience offsetting the difficulty of using
the small keyboard. The scanners were already working,
compiling another set of statistics in the memory, and
she pulled up a window with the summary of the last scan
she had of Hotaru from three months ago.
" I'm a little surprised that this bothers you,
Ami-chan," she said, startling the other girl, and then
risked a mischievous smile. " Don't you want to be a
doctor?"
" Well," Ami blushed again and took the
defensive. " We don't have the normal doctor and patient
relationship that the medical programs train you for, so
it does seem a little strange."
" I'm sorry, then," she replied. " I was never
really modest after the accident. After the first few
dozen doctors prod you for a while, you don't care about
it anymore."
Ami hazarded a glance at her. " You don't even
look like it ever happened."
" I look that way now," Hotaru replied, referring
to the accident twelve years ago where her mother was
killed and she was fatally injured. It was only by the
bargain her father made by selling his soul to Pharaoh
Ninety that she survived the explosion in the laboratory.
" Before, most of my major joints were artificial,
or held together by lots of plastic and metal. Most of the
larger bones were broken and had pins in them. I used to
set off the detectors at the airport when we went to the
orthopedic clinic in Los Angeles for the second and third
operations. I wore those body suits all the time when we
first met because the scarring was so bad after all the
surgeries."
Ami started to express her condolences when her
computer beeped at her.
" This is sickening," she muttered. " I think you
look like you're about sixteen or seventeen, but in the
past three months you've put on another twelve centimeters.
You're already taller than I am, and I don't think you've
stopped yet."
" Yes!" the girl exulted, and then reigned in her
excitement. " I'm sorry, Ami-chan. It's just that I've
always been the shortest one and Michiru and Haruka are
so tall. I didn't mean anything by it."
" That's all right," she responded. " You just
might catch Michiru at this rate. Can you keep a secret?"
Hotaru nodded, picked up her underwear and glanced
at Ami, who nodded in reply before continuing. " Usagi
has been wearing heels a lot more recently, and I've
taken to wearing flats most of the time so she won't
notice. She's the shortest of us now by a total of two
millimeters."
" You didn't tell her?" Hotaru asked as she began
to dress.
" No," was the reply as Ami set up a new program
and started it. " It isn't as important to me as it is
to her. I had gotten just a little bit taller than her
a while back, and then she caught up and passed me. She
knows that I'm almost her height, but not that I've
surpassed it. Would you please change into Sailor Saturn
now?"
Astonishment and surprise filled her voice a few
moments later after Hotaru complied with her request,
a scepter appearing in her hands and a cascade of purple
light falling on her from the ceiling.
" Would you change back and forth a few times?" Ami
asked, getting a puzzled look on her face. Hotaru did
as asked, wondering what was wrong.
" Well?"
" That's really strange," Ami said a few minutes
later. " You didn't gain in height or weight when you
changed."
" What?"
Ami took a deep breath and leaned back in her seat,
motioning for the other girl to join her. Hotaru did so
after changing back. " Perhaps you didn't notice it
because you've still been growing so much over a relatively
short period of time, but we all got a little bigger after
we first became Senshi. It wasn't much, only about a
centimeter or so and a kilo or two, but we all changed
after our first transformation."
" Mine wasn't really normal, I guess," Hotaru
admitted, shrugging. " Not with someone else controlling
my body at the time."
" We don't really know why it happened," Ami
continued. " It may be part of why we're different
from normal people. As Senshi, we're somewhat stronger,
faster, and so on. The extra height and weight might
just be the changes to our skeletal structure and
musculature that enables us to do that."
" That must have been fun dealing with," she
quipped. " I guess it was time for a new wardrobe, huh?"
" You don't know just how much fun it was," Ami
dryly replied. " Ever wear a bra that was just a little
too small?"
Hotaru winced at the thought, causing Ami to
laugh at her reaction before going back to her
explanation. " When I first became Mercury, I was
about a total of two centimeters taller than I had been
a week before that. I had been measured for a physical
as part of my transfer to another new school, so I knew
my height quite well. The rest of us had pretty much the
same results. We all gained a little bit permanently, and
a little more on top of that when we transform.
" I'm one of the least noticeable ones, with Mako-chan
and Haruka-san being at the other end of the spectrum.
They're physically a lot stronger than I am, though, so
that could be part of the reason."
Hotaru went pale at the pleased look that came over
Ami's face after that statement and unconsciously leaned
away from her on the couch.
" Hotaru-chan," Ami sweetly asked. " You do have
a private gym on this floor, don't you?"
" Yes," she nervously replied.
" That's wonderful," Ami almost purred, rising
to her feet. " I was looking for something to occupy
my mind today, and I just realized that you gave me a
new puzzle to try and figure out. I want to get some
idea of how strong you are now and when you're Sailor
Saturn, among a few things. Treadmills and weights to
begin with, I believe.
" I may have had a problem acting like a doctor a
few moments ago, but I'm great at being a research
scientist."
************************************************
The conditions that night were some of the nicest
she had seen in a long time, and she was glad that he had
asked her to accompany him this evening. She slipped from
one shadow to another, carefully avoiding making a sound.
There was only a little bit of light from the stars right
now, so it was a nice change of pace. The hunting in the
park near Usagi's didn't have nearly the challenge that
this place had, and the artificial lights made it so
easy some times.
A gleam of silver ahead of her was Artemis doing
much the same as she, although he had gotten to be
slightly better than her at night work. His coat made
him use more care and skill in planning his approach.
She had realized that she had gotten sloppy one time
they were playing hide and seek a few months ago to
keep their skills honed.
Despite her coloring giving her a distinct advantage
at night, she had been spotted more times than he and had
been the loser that evening. That was why they were now
prowling the slopes of the hill by the shrine. The thick
undergrowth was a natural haven for their prey and would
give her many opportunities to practice.
He had stopped and was slightly tensed. She saw
his ears twitch forward, indicating he had spotted
something. Automatically, she swung out to circle
around on his right and get herself in position. She
was the one who needed the practice here, and he
understood that.
Whatever it was, it had no idea that she was
here. The rustling continued as she crept forward. She
stepped over a dry twig, and carefully avoided some
brittle leaves until she was in the position she
desired. Mouse, she realized, catching the scent as
the breeze swung a little more towards her.
It only took a few more minutes. She had the
patience that a regular cat couldn't match and her prey
soon moved in closer to her. The mouse couldn't see her
in the dim light and she wasn't moving. The kill was
almost anti-climactic.
" Good stalk," he said as he walked up to her. She
shrugged and let the mouse go. It sat in shock for a few before scampering away into a tuft of grass. They
both tensed instinctively, preparing for the chase, and
then smiled at their reactions.
" It wasn't much of a challenge," she sniffed and
examined one of her paws.
" It should never be a challenge," he replied,
sitting down next to her. " Your instincts are still
there, Luna. You're just out of practice."
" You would be if you had my job," she added
somewhat defensively. He flinched slightly at that,
and she realized what she had implied. " I'm sorry,
Artemis. I didn't mean... it's just that she's still
so much work for me."
" I know," he sighed and leaned against her a
little bit. " I have a lot more free time now, and
some nights it is very nice to be able to let instincts
take over for a while and not have to remember."
" I know," she whispered. " I miss that, too."
" I told you I could take some of your nights for
you."
" I... she's still such a handful that I really
wouldn't feel right doing that. Sometimes I feel that
she'll never grow up."
" You've done a good job, dear," he added and
began to groom her behind the ears, right where he knew
she liked it. " Usagi is a light that only shines in the
darkest hours."
" And to think that I wondered just where Minako-chan
came up with all that horrible dialogue that Usagi-chan
copied," Luna teased him before getting serious. " She's
having a tougher time accepting it right now. Usagi has
been very upset ever since Minako-chan saw her changing.
She almost tried using the crystal last night to bring
her back."
" Baka," he growled softly. He got up and began
to walk up towards the top of the hill. " I could have
told her that it won't work."
" Artemis," she called out in a shocked voice
as she followed him. " You mean to tell me that-"
" What would you expect?" he whispered so quietly
she almost didn't hear what he said. She could, however,
easily feel the pain in his voice. " Yes, I tried to
reach her mind. She was as much my daughter as Diana
will ever be. She was my friend, Luna.
" I snuck in to see her the first night and almost
put my entire soul into her in an effort to find out what
happened. I still couldn't find her. I've done the same
thing every couple of months on the hope that we've
somehow gotten lucky.
" That girl looks like her and smells like her,
but we still can't prove that it is the Minako we knew.
There's no sign of Minako. I can't even find any sign of
Venus anymore."
" Oh, no!" she exclaimed. " Artemis, I'm so sorry.
Why didn't you tell us?"
He sighed as they reached the actual grounds of
the shrine but didn't answer her right away. Phobos and
Deimos didn't even stir from their perch as the cats
walked by them after climbing a tree en route to a warm
spot on the roof near the chimney. It was only after
they had curled up in a ball together that he went on.
" I may have been wrong, Luna, and I couldn't...
couldn't bring myself to break her heart like that."
" That's true. It has been tough enough for Usagi
with Minako-chan being gone, let alone the chance that
it might be permanent, " she replied, remembering the
scene on the chartered Learjet after Usagi had been seen
off by Minako's parents. Usagi, along with Michiru, Haruka
and the two cats were supposed to be going to Europe to
see the girl who was being hired to be Minako's double
on the volleyball tour. The strain of having to imitate
Minako and deal with her parents left Usagi so
emotionally drained that she had collapsed as soon
as the doors closed.
Michiru took her into her arms and got her onto
the plane's couch. Usagi wasn't wailing like she usually
did when she cried. This was a quiet sobbing that just
wouldn't stop until she fell asleep a few hours later.
The two women diverted the plane to Okinawa and took
Usagi to a private resort for some time to recover and
regroup. The two cats, along with Haruka, flew back
later that night in order to bring Mamoru to Usagi. She
also took the opportunity to do a light mind-touch on
Usagi's family so they wouldn't miss her for a few weeks
since the black cat was the most familiar with them.
" Her mother would be proud of her," he added a
few moments later. " I think that we've done a good job."
" I think so, too," she replied before resting
her head on him and closing her eyes for a brief
catnap. He was only too glad to join her, and for some
time the only sounds were the branches rustling in the
light breeze.
***********************************************
A small noise woke the child up in the darkness of
the early morning. She stirred and looked up before
breaking into a grin as she recognized the visitor. The
child didn't make a sound, though. She had learned that
the other one would leave if she began to cry out. The
mark on her forehead began to softly glow, giving
everything in the room a pale, golden tint that matched
the child's hair.
" That's very good, little one," the woman whispered,
picked up the child and made her way to a seat on the sofa
by the window. A hand was gently laid over the glowing
sigil as another appeared in response, glowing in a
luminescent violet on the woman's head. The child's
faded after a few minutes.
" You're not needed right now, sweetheart. Rest
while you can."
She always liked this view from this particular
house. The city lights and the darkness of Tokyo Bay
were a wonderful contrast and she used to spend a lot
of time here just looking at them. This was even better
now, she admitted to herself. It had been so long since
she had been able to do this.
The others were like her children in some ways, or
her younger sisters in an extended family. She had helped
raise almost all of them over the years, even the one she
now held. She had long since lost track of how many hours
had been spent like this in the early mornings of the past
in the castle on the moon, holding one of them and looking
up at the blue orb that loomed above them.
Her voice wasn't used to singing this softly and
threatened to break a few times, but she quietly crooned
a lullaby that hadn't been heard for over a thousand
years. The last time she had sang other than this was one
time just after meeting the first of the others here, when
she had walked in on them while they were playing music
together. She knew the words, of course. It was her help
that enabled the composer to finish the piece all those
years ago.
The other two had been startled, but continued
playing as she took over the role of the singer from
Haruka, and put her heart into it as a remembrance of
the glories that she had seen go by and the brilliance
of a young prodigy. They almost applauded as she finished,
but that would have spoiled the moment. They also wanted
her to continue performing with them, but she had
declined the invitation.
Her song tonight had the same effect on the
girl that it did in a previous life, and the child
was asleep in a few minutes. The woman was almost
surprised that she remembered the lullaby since it
had been so long ago. In a way, the others had it
easier. They didn't have to live through everything
like she had to, but had simply slept through a
thousand years.
No, they had it much easier, and on some days the
load was harder for her to bear than on others. The years
weighed heavily on her right now, and two lines of tears
silently made their way down her face.
The faintest of pressures on her shoulder made her
look up in surprise. The translucent form of a woman
stood before her. She had long, golden hair that reached
to her waist, a fuku of white and orange with a blue bow,
and her eyes were very sad, but also sympathetic. This
ghost knew something of her pain, she realized, and she
stood to properly greet her.
A thought silently changed her clothes to match
the style of the other's, a matching fuku but in a
black that seemed to absorb the light where the spirit
was in glowing orange. She nodded once, silently. Words
were not necessary.
Another figure appeared in the room. She was also
not fully there; a diaphanous, young woman who was just
a little shorter than the first apparition. She had
short, shoulder length black hair and her clothes
matched the others, but in purple with dark red ribbons.
The newcomer came over and embraced the woman,
melting into nothingness as she did so. She should have
been sad at her departure, but was refreshed in spirit.
The other one stepped forward as well. An insubstantial
hand stroked the child's hair once, and then she felt
the comfort that the embrace should have brought as
the image dissolved at her touch.
She wasn't alone, she realized, her mood brightening
somewhat. They did remember her, and understood her duty
and the demands it made on her.
" Thank you," she softly spoke and put the child
back into the crib. The blankets were carefully tucked
back in and she gave her a soft kiss on her forehead
before standing up straight. A staff appeared in her
hand, the gem at the top glowing a soft red, and she
vanished just before the door opened to admit a sleepy
young woman who stifled a yawn as she went in to check
on the child.
Her hair bobbed around her neck as she bent over
the crib, it's black color and cut an exact copy of that
of one of the spirits who had been in the room a few
moments before. The young woman yawned again and went
back to bed, still trying to figure out what had awoken
her a few moments ago if the child was asleep.
**********************************************
The calm night at the shrine didn't last long. The
crows started screeching at the same time the cats both
heard a fearful cry ring out from inside the shrine
building.
" Rei!" Luna called out, realizing that the voice
was too high pitched to be either of the men there. Two
lights came on downstairs and they could hear a pair of
footsteps going up the stairs. Artemis was in motion
already, scampering around the rooftop until he was
outside of Rei's window. Luna was right behind him.
They could see the door inside burst open as
Yuuichiro came through with Rei's grandfather in hot
pursuit. The girl herself was sitting upright in bed
with the covers tangled around her legs and waist. They
found that her eyes were wide and unblinking when the
older man threw the light switch.
" Rei-chan!" Yuuichiro called out to her and gently
shook her by the shoulders. His intentions were good, but
it still didn't prevent her grandfather from pitching him
out the door for approaching her in such a state of
relative undress.
" Make some tea, son," he called out over his
shoulder, flashing a brief smile of gratitude at the
younger man to let him know he wasn't in the wrong for
what he had done. They could see that while the priest
was concerned, he wasn't in a state of panic.
" Rei-chan," he softly called to her in a soothing
tone of voice. His hands pressed against the sides of
her head at the temple while he intoned a low chant
that reminded the cats of the mantra the girl used
with her wards. The girl shuddered and relaxed,
slumping against him for support.
" Thank you, ojii-san," she said a few minutes
later.
" A vision?" he asked. " You came out of the
dream in a trance state."
" Another vision," she admitted. A knock at the
door kept her from saying anything more. She
straightened the sheets and pulled them up around
her chest as he got up to open the door. Yuuichiro
came in with the tea and a look of concern on his
face that was mirrored on the two outside.
" Are you all right, Rei-san?" he asked, his
concerns and the presence of the priest making him
use a more respectful form of addressing her. She
nodded at him and gave him a warm smile when he handed
her the tea.
" Could we talk about it in the morning?" she
asked before her grandfather could ask her to explain
what she had seen. " I want... I need to meditate and
clear my mind before I start to forget anything about it."
" I'll go tend to the fire," Yuuichiro said,
moving to leave. Her grandfather nodded his agreement,
but she could see his concern. He turned down the
corridor and the younger man began to close the door.
" Thank you, Yuu-chan," she softly said, getting
a smile back from him. The door finished closing and
she heard a muffled cry from the hallway, and her
grandfather beginning one of his tirades about the
boy being too familiar with his granddaughter as
they went down the stairs. He did tend to be very
conservative in regards to their dating and their
relationship, but she also knew that he was hiding
a smile behind his mustache. The priest had gotten
fond of the young man over the years.
The scratching at the window roused her. She
opened it, and was rather surprised when two cats
jumped in instead of the birds she had expected. Artemis
blushed and politely turned away from her. Luna
affectionately smacked him in the back of the head
and muttered something about his being a peeping tom
while Rei blushed as well. She slid on a robe and tied
the sash before sitting back down on the bed.
" Are you all right, Rei-chan," Luna quietly
asked. " What's this about visions?"
" I had the first one about two months ago," she
admitted. " I'd wake up and have this grave sense of
foreboding, but I couldn't remember seeing the cause."
" And it was worse tonight?" Artemis ventured. The
girl nodded before taking a drink of the tea. She held
up a hand to them and spent a few minutes composing her
thoughts before continuing.
" We've been studying astronomy in my science
class at school. The sun is supposed to eventually cool
off for a long time before partially collapsing and going
nova. It will blow off most of it's outer layers a few
billion years from now. This will destroy most of the
inner planets, by the way," she nervously added, grimacing
despite trying to smile and make it a joke.
" It didn't happen in the future like it was
supposed to in my dream. It was happening now. The final
winter came. Everything was freezing, and we... we all
died."
************************************************
" Thanks for waiting, Usagi-chan," she said, still
slightly out of breath from running to the recently
opened cafe from the bus stop.
" It was no problem," she replied as she looked
up from the cup of Darjeeling tea she was nursing
along. " I'm glad you could make it today."
Naru smiled as she sat down in the other seat
of the corner booth, marveling at the changes she had
seen over the past year and a half. While she had only
been about ten minutes late, the Usagi she used to know
would have had the table covered with empty ice cream
soda glasses by now, or some other calorie-laden
concoction.
" You know, she admitted, glancing around to
make sure that none of the other patrons of the cafe
could hear them. " It is kind of ironic that you chose
this place to meet today."
" Huh?" she blurted as a confused look came
across her face.
" It is called Cafe Luna, silly," Naru smiled,
her blue eyes sparkling in the sunlight. Usagi blushed
in relief before she could prevent it, and then felt
a little pang of loss at seeing the green bow holding
back Naru's reddish-brown hair. She recalled a similar
red one that someone else used to wear who also had
blue eyes and smiled a lot.
" Why do you say that?" she asked, still hoping
that the conversation wouldn't go in a certain way.
Sometimes, she had this eerie feeling that Naru knew
more than she was letting on. It wasn't entirely
explained by the fact that her boyfriend was the vital
cog in the rumor mill, either.
" Your cat," she commented, and Usagi breathed a
sigh of relief.
" Any word from that college?" she asked, hoping
to change the subject.
" That's part of what I wanted to talk to you
about," Naru began, pouring herself a cup of tea and
browsing through the menu for a moment, and then
catching the waiter's eye so they could place their
orders.
" We got our acceptance letters from Nekomi Tech
yesterday, although it is still conditional on our
finishing high school, if you want to call going in
just for homeroom every morning the equivalent of high
school."
" Naru!" she gasped, feeling happy for her
friend. " I'm so glad for you! You both really wanted
to go to the same university, and he's had that one in
mind since grade school."
" I know," the brunette smiled back. " The extra
credits we got from taking the summer classes allowed
us to finish most of our schooling and take the
entrance exams a semester early. I put in for their
business program so I can help my mom, and Umino is
going for the computer courses.
" We met this really nice exchange student when
we toured the campus last week, and she and Umino got
along really well. They were speaking in Greek, for all
I knew while they talked about computers and stuff, but
he thinks that we'll do well there. Can you believe that
the auto club already is already trying to get him to
sign up with them to help computerize their latest
project?"
" He doesn't even have a driver's license yet," she
protested, heartily laughing all the while. " I'm glad
that you got accepted, but I'm going to really miss you.
Nekomi is on the other side of Tokyo, and you've already
said that you want to move into a place near the
university you went to."
" I know, Usagi-chan. We won't be able to see
each other as much for a little while, but you're going
to be awfully busy yourself. You still have the last
semester to finish up and your entrance exams to take.
You're going to be eighteen in a few months and you
need to get some idea of what school you want to go
to."
" I need to make it through this one first," she
moaned. " Haruna-sensei has finally gotten over her
surprise at the change in my grades and is getting her
revenge for the principal assigning her to every class
as I progressed to it."
" The other teachers were afraid of you,
Usagi-chan," Naru giggled. " Haruna-sensei is just
paying the price for complaining about you so much to
the other teachers."
" She'll be the end of me!" they both intoned in
unison in a near-perfect imitation of the teacher they
had in their first two years of high school before
breaking into easy laughter together. The waiter came
by at that time to drop off their meals, and they were
quiet for a few minutes as they began to eat.
" Thank you," Naru said suddenly after releasing
a deep sigh. " I've been a nervous wreck trying to
figure out how to approach you on it, but I did want
to thank you."
" Excuse me?"
" Usagi," she began, clearly not using the -chan
suffix she always used when talking to her in order to
emphasize the seriousness of what she was about to say
and the closeness of their relationship. " I know,
Usagi. I've known for quite some time about who you
also are."
" Naru-chan," she stammered, letting her fork slip
from her fingers and clearly at a loss for words. Naru
reached out and took Usagi's hands in her own.
" I used to be mad about what happened, and that
you didn't tell me. We've been the best of friends since
the third grade, and then everything changed after you
got Luna almost four years ago. Suddenly, you didn't have
the time for me, it seemed. You had a bunch of new
friends, and I figured that was the end of it. People
sometimes just drift apart as life goes on.
" Then, out of the blue, you wanted back into my
life like everything was back to the way it used to be.
That went on for nearly a half a year, and then you're
gone again and running around with Ami-chan and
Mako-chan. The funny thing was that you had been so
close so suddenly, and all three of you seemed to have
forgotten about each other at the same time, and then
remembered about your previous friendship at the same
time."
She held up a hand to forestall Usagi's protests
and took a sip of water.
" It finally clicked, Usagi. I don't know why it
took so long, but I suddenly realized what was going
on with you a couple of years ago, and then I realized
the truth about the rest of them once I thought about
it for a little while. Wherever you were, she would
show up."
" I'm sorry, Naru-chan. I don't know what to say."
" I won't tell anyone, Usagi," she went on with a
little smile. " Not even Umino. I realize how much you've
had to do to protect so many people as well as us, and I
don't hold it against you for not telling me. I'm just
glad that you've taken the time over the last two years
to spend some more time with me, and to not just let
our friendship die. It really means a lot to me, although
I wish you would let me help you with what's been
bothering you so much the last week. I know you well
enough to see that you're hiding something."
" In for a penny," she sighed heavily, and fished
her wallet out of her purse. She flipped it open, took
out a picture and handed it over to Naru. " Do you
remember Minako-chan?"
" Yes," she said, looking at the picture of the
little girl. " She went to Europe to go to school, didn't
she? This is the baby that Michiru-san and Haruka-san
adopted, though."
" No," she forced the words out past the
pain. " That's not right. She died almost two years
ago, Naru-chan. She gave up her life to save mine. We
think she was reborn as that child, but we don't have
any way of knowing for certain."
" Usagi-" she began, slipping around in the booth
and putting a comforting arm around her friend.
" That's not all, though," she interrupted and
sniffled, trying to hold back the tears that were welling
in her eyes. " She's really bright and quickly learned all
of our names. She saw me transform one day last week. I
wasn't thinking and did it in front of her. Now, she's
changed in how she acts towards me. I was her favorite
one, and now she doesn't even remember my name anymore."
A sob finally escaped from her as she began to
tremble. " She calls me Serenity."
Naru blinked in confusion, not knowing what Usagi
was referring to, but the pain her friend was feeling was
obvious. She gathered her into her arms to console her,
and held Usagi while she half-heartedly tried to pull away.
" No... can't cry," Usagi managed between the sobs
she was trying to suppress. " I have to be strong. She
gave me another chance and I have to be strong this time."
" Silly girl," Naru gently scolded her as the dam
broke and the tears began to roll down her face. She
pulled her head down onto her shoulder and patted her
gently on the back. " You can't hold everything in like
that, Usagi-chan. Just let it out, and then we can talk
about it. We've got plenty of time, and you can tell me
all about it."
************************************************
The bell rang, signaling the end of classes for
the day and causing a stampede for the doors. What she
would do next was mainly done just to annoy Sister
Agnes. The old nun had been a monster towards all of
them recently, and she just couldn't take it anymore.
Her locker was just outside the room that the
old prune taught in during the last period, and she
also knew that the teacher would be just beyond the
doors to the walkway outside right now, trying to get
the other girls to behave in a more dignified fashion.
Fat chance of that on a Friday afternoon in early April
when the sun was in the sky, boyfriends were out there
to be found and a vacation loomed ahead.
Fishing the denim shorts out of her locker, she
slid them on underneath her skirt and stepped out of
the lower half of the uniform of Thomas Aquinas school
for girls. Her top came off next, revealing the T-shirt
she wore underneath it to combat the overachieving
air-conditioner in the new building that nearly made
her last two classes the equivalent of a winter
wonderland.
She didn't like the cold in that building and
dressed accordingly, all the while considering throwing
a curse on the ancestors of whichever dirty old priest
came up with the school uniform. Being forced to wear
a short skirt in winter wasn't easy, not when you
preferred the heat of summer. The spring weather was
the most variable, however. It would be warm outside,
freezing inside and difficult to adjust to the change.
The garments went into her backpack along with the
uniform shoes. She stepped into her sneakers and ran out
the doors, passing the old nun in a blink of an eye.
" Good-bye, Sister Agnes!" she called out cheerfully,
scandalizing her teacher and sending her into a fit of
spluttering about the degradation of morals in this age
and what a proper young lady should be wearing. She
herself was far too respectful of other religions to
insult them, but nothing in the Shinto precepts taught
to her by her grandfather said anything about poking a
little fun at a fractious old nun who thought that the
ideal career for her students was joining a nunnery.
Some of the other girls there had a good laugh at
the expense of the teacher as Rei
continued running out the gates and down the low
hill. Her conditioning let her keep up the brisk pace
and to just make it past St. Andrew's before the bell
rang there. She liked the attention from the boys there
at her school's affiliate, but she wasn't in the mood
right now to fend off some of her ardent admirers. By
the time the boys got out of class and off the school
grounds she was two blocks away and around a corner.
Assured of having a peaceful time the rest of the
way home, she slowed her pace to a steady walk and window
shopped at a few of her favorite stores as she went by. Her
wardrobe needed a few new things, anyway, and she liked to
get out and see the displays of the new merchandise. She
hadn't the opportunity to do much of that recently.
A number of things had made her very busy recently.
She had taken one of the preparatory classes for her
university entrance exams despite Ami's offer of help. Ami
was a wonderful friend but wouldn't be as hard on her as
she needed someone to be at times.
Things were also looking up between her and
Yuuichiro. Somewhere, the ice had broken between them.
She didn't know when or where it had occurred. Their
relationship was also a slow one to develop. It wasn't
easy going from being friends with someone to becoming
lovers, which was what it seemed to be heading towards.
Between these things and her duties as a Senshi,
she had been very busy, indeed, but she decided that
she felt good enough today to take a little detour. Going
through the mall up ahead would add a few blocks to her
trip, but she didn't mind. The shop would be open.
The mall she turned into was an old one and an old
design. The newer malls were practically glass enclosed
cities with wide streets. This one was open to the sky
and almost narrow, and it only covered the distance
between the two streets. Some food vendors had set up
carts, resulting in a delicious smell and an almost
tangible warmth that the new malls lacked. The shops
and their customers had been here for a long time in
most cases, and she simply liked it better here.
She darted into one shop and poked her head around
the corner into another. The proprietor of the one she
was in smiled at the game that was played out about once
every two weeks. The clerk at the music store was helping
some grungy looking guys in the drum section, so she
slipped around the corner, went in and sat down at the
bench of the organ by the entrance.
The functions of the switches had already been
memorized, and her fingers flew over the two banks above
the twin keyboard. They pressed down a few keys and lifted
several others. The organ hummed a little as it warmed up,
and then the thunderous opening of the movement filled up
the store. Even the rockers turned, impressed by the power
of the piece despite it's classical origin, and listened
until she had finished.
" That was excellent work," said an older man who
had come out of the office in the back of the store as
she played. " It will, however, take more that cutting
off several opening bars or so of that one to fool me,
my dear.
" That was from Gustav's 'The Planets', but your
selection surprises me. You're more of a Jupiter to me.
The bringer of jollity, you lighten up my store every
time you show up, Miss Hino."
" Jupiter?" she echoed in surprise as she powered
down the organ and reset the controls. Then she laughed
aloud. " No, I'm not a Jupiter."
" Neptune the mystic, perhaps, but anything other
than the bringer of war," he smiled back. " I'm sure that
Holst never had you in mind when he wrote that work."
" I can only hope to be like Neptune," she
cryptically responded and then laughed again, shaking
off the sudden somber look that came into her eyes. " I'm
clearly and definitely Mars, I'm afraid."
" Well, Miss Mars," he said as he extended a hand
to help her to her feet. " Are you going to be able to
get yourself that birthday present you want so much?"
" I'm close, but not that close. I only have a few
weeks until the birthday comes around and I'm about two
months away from saving up for the piano."
" That's too bad, then. I know how much you want
that one we have."
" Yes," she admitted, looking in the direction of
the upright. She had been saving up for it for over a
year now. While it would have only taken a word to some
of her friends to obtain it, she wanted to get it on her
own.
The mirrors at the back of the store behind the piano
revealed something that made her face go pale. She spun
just in time to see a cascade of auburn hair move out of
her line of sight and then she was already on her way to
the door. The owner of that hair had been in the doorway
when she glanced in the mirror.
" I'm sorry, Mr. Tomino," she called out over her
shoulder. " I just saw someone I needed to talk to. I'll
be back in here soon!"
It only took her a few moments to reach the walkway
and begin to run in the direction the other woman had
taken. The walkway was virtually empty with the exception
of the sidewalk area about fifty meters away. The only
ones near her a mother and her two young children. She
slowed to a stop.
A loud sigh escaped her lips as she blankly walked
towards the street in order to have a look around even
though she knew that she wouldn't see her there. The wall
to her right got an accusing stare from her.
Ghosts were supposed to be able to go through
walls, and she had seen a ghost a few moments ago. It
had been nearly two years since anyone had seen that
girl who was in the mirror. A whisper escaped her
without really being noticed.
" Hamaji."
***********************************************
" Do you feel it, too?"
Haruka looked up as a shadow fell across her. She
shivered despite the fact that it was a pleasant morning
and she was wearing a shirt and slacks.
" Yes."
" The seas are troubled, Haruka," Michiru said as
she sat down next to her on the towel. Michiru had
wanted to go swimming in the ocean in order to clear
her mind, so they had driven to this resort late last
night. They only had gotten a few hours of sleep but
they were used to that. Neither of them needed as much
as a normal person, and they had the beach to
themselves at this early hour.
" Just like the wind," the blonde added, glancing
up. The sun was just rising over the horizon and colored
the clouds in tones of orange. " It looks calm, but you
can feel the tension building."
" Something is going to happen today," Michiru
replied and began to dry her hair with her towel.
" Do you still like my hands?" Haruka grinned,
catching Michiru's and gathering her into an embrace.
The other woman laughed gently and let herself get
pulled down onto her partner. The white one-piece she
wore was still wet and left some damp marks on Haruka's
shirt.
" Yes, I still like your hands," she murmured,
squeezing them and remembering that day when they had
felt this way before. To their surprise, it turned out
that they actually had the talismans that they had been
looking for. Neither had realized it because the
artifacts were supposed to be in the possession of
a person with a pure heart. Haruka had said that
particular morning that she thought her hands were
dirty, a metaphor for all the things that she had
done that she felt would have made her unable to have
the talisman..
" I like your heart, too," she added, leaning
over to briefly kiss Haruka. " We'd best be going,
then. I told Makoto that we'd be at her place by nine
to pick up Minako-chan."
" Nine?" she protested, grinning. " That doesn't
leave me much time to drive all the way back to Tokyo if
you take the hour you usually do getting ready. You must
have a lot of faith in my driving."
" I'm the passenger, aren't I?" she quipped, getting
to her feet and helping Haruka to hers. They walked up
the beach and back to the inn with their arms around
each other.
***********************************************
" That's really weird," she agreed with Usagi as
they walked through the park. The morning sun made her
squint a little bit but didn't seem to be bothering the
blonde. It was probably because Usagi still wasn't used
to being up so early on a Saturday morning.
" I know, Mako-chan. Wouldn't you think it was
strange to see someone who died nearly two years ago?"
" She didn't die," she commented as she stopped
to see if there was some way to put down the cover of
the stroller to shield Minako's eyes against the bright
light. She shouldn't have even bothered because the child
was still asleep. " Rei-chan said that she disappeared
without a trace. What I don't like is the day it
happened."
Usagi's face fell for a moment at the reminder
of that day in June nearly two years ago. She wasn't
the only one who had died. Makoto had been among the
vanquished. The child in the stroller was possibly the
only reason that they were alive this day.
" Rei feels that it's related to us somehow," she
explained. " The fire didn't tell her anything conclusive,
though."
" I hate this part," the taller young woman growled,
smacking the fist of her right hand into the palm of her
left in frustration. " I hate knowing that something is
going to happen, and not knowing what."
" Mako-chan," she said as she saw the look on her
friend's face. She pulled her over to a bench that was
shaded by a tree and sat her down. " Maybe it will just
be another golem."
" I hope so," she suddenly grinned. " I could
really stand taking out some aggressions out on one of
them. They're not bright but they are resistant to
damage."
They laughed together at her joke and relaxed
for a few minutes. The child stirred in her sleep and
the brunette looked in on her again with a smile on her
face.
" I owe her a lot, you know,- " she began when
the blonde interrupted her.
" Would you have made the same choice that she
did?" she asked Makoto, indicating the child.
" Yes, Usagi-chan," she sighed. The other had
similar conversations with Usagi recently about the
same subject. It was only a matter of time until she
got around to asking her this question. " I don't know
how she did it, but I would have done the same."
" Why, Mako-chan?" she nearly cried out. " Why
are you all so eager to die for me?"
She threw an arm around the blonde's shoulders
and pulled her against her before going on.
" I'm not all that eager to die, Usagi-chan.
Especially not right now. Still, I wouldn't have anything
now if it wasn't for you, and the others feel the same
way. If there wasn't any other way to do it, I'd give up
my life for yours. We all would."
" Why am I so-" she began to protest when a finger
was laid across her lips, silencing her.
" Stop it, Usagi-chan," she said. " You're our
friend. It's not because you're the princess. You've
given so much to us over the years that we'd do it in
order to make sure that you're all right. We want you
to have some of the happiness that you've given us the
chance to have. You have to stop dwelling on that,
Usagi-chan.
" Enough of this, though. It's too nice today
for talk like that, and too early."
She pulled the blonde to her feet and got her
walking along the path that meandered around the lake
at the center of the park. There were a few joggers out
this early in the morning, but the crowds would only
come a little later in the day. She kept up a flow of
small talk to keep her occupied and to cheer her up
until they came to the cart of a street vendor and
bought two cups of tea.
" Now, Usagi-chan," she added after they resumed
their stroll. " Today is supposed to be a special one.
I want you to cheer up, all right?"
" All right, Mako-chan," she automatically responded,
but her eyes took a few minutes to brighten up. It was too
nice a morning to be down and her natural, sunny disposition
finally came through. " You're awfully cheerful this
morning. Did everything go all right last night with
Hiro?"
" You mean 'my hero' ?" she giggled at the play
on words and then got a wistful look on her face. " Yes,
it did, but he left this morning and won't be back until
the end of the break. His parents want him to go, and he's
close with his relatives in Nagasaki."
" So, would you call your first real date with him a
success?"
" Yes, you little matchmaker. We've seen movies
together a few times before and such, but it was our
first real date last night. I had a good time."
" That's great, Mako-chan," she exclaimed. " It
seems that running into your sempai last month was a
good thing, then."
" Oh, yes," she laughed heartily. " I was so hung
up on him that it was funny, and he made an absolute fool
of himself that day when he saw me pushing this
stroller. He was thinking that she was his child,
and started talking about marriage.
"I needed that, Usagi-chan. I was able to finally
see just how much of a fool I was to have done that to
myself over someone like him. After that, the idea of
dating other guys didn't seem to be so strange, and I
wasn't holding anyone up to a false standard that I'd
built up over the years."
" I'm really glad, Mako-chan. I'm glad you're
finally over him."
The tolling of a church bell in the distance made
the taller girl check her watch and gasp in surprise.
" I didn't realize that it was so late! I've got
to get going, Usagi-chan. The cooking part is done, but
I'll still have to assemble and pack a lot of stuff. Could
you wait here a few minutes for Michiru? I told her to
check the park first before going to my house to pick her
up."
" Certainly, Mako-chan," she agreed, nodding her
head. " Ami-chan and I need to drop by school to see the
test results, and then I'm free until twelve. I'll see
you later."
The brunette scowled at the mention of tests, but
then gave her a quick smile before running off to her
apartment. Makoto had volunteered to do a lot of work
for today and would need the time to get everything
ready.
************************************************
He glared at the book, but it still refused
to give up the secrets that it held between it's
covers. His coffee had grown cold as well. All in
all, it hadn't been a good morning.
This library had almost become his second home
over the last year and a third he had been researching.
Despite his intentions, the puzzle here had drawn him
in. He pushed himself backwards, allowing the chair to
roll back a meter from the desk. His eyes acknowledged
the size of the room and how many books he still had to
go through.
The house was in one of the very affluent
neighborhoods of Tokyo. Michiru had been the one to
discover it while going through Setsuna's records. It
was one of several houses that they didn't know of her
having and was part of a series of safe-houses. The
fact that there were two libraries had caught her eye.
Ami had been called in when they found out what
the second, smaller library had dedicated to. All of
these houses had extensive libraries that were mainly
devoted to reference materials. If you wanted to find
out just about anything, one of these libraries was
the place to go. The one in this house had been a
great deal of help to him.
The second library here was devoted to works on
magic. Michiru and Ami had tried and failed to learn
anything of substance there and had called him in. He
was the closest they had to someone who could actually
manipulate magic. The others used it, but they didn't
know how they did.
His time had been spent going through all the books
and he averaged about two to three hours a day on a
regular basis in addition to going to college. Usagi
had tried to help him at first until he gently sent her
away. She meant well, but was a distraction here.
The selection at the library covered just about
any comprehensive work in the field for the last three
hundred years. Most of the authors were fakes or
charlatans, and only a few were by writers concerned
with rational analysis of the subject. Some were
originals and some reproductions, but all of them
had one distinct drawback.
The problem was that none of them actually could
prove that magic existed, let alone use it. His
conversations with Kunzite when he started had helped
him to prove his theory about that point. That would
mean, according to logic, that none of the books could
help him to learn anything about the subject.
Unfortunately, there were enough kernels of
wisdom hidden among the chaff to make him go through
all of them. His old mentor had been able to guide
him at first, but it was getting harder to contact
him as time went on. He calculated he would only have
a few more conversations with Kunzite until he could
no longer manage to make the connection between the
living and the dead.
Kunzite's power had helped to make the contact
possible. Jadeite and Zoicite were only reachable a
few times until their stones didn't react to him anymore.
Nephrite managed an even dozen. They were only able to
cover the basics that they taught him long ago, but
anything was better than the search through the books
or waiting to remember.
The book that he was glaring at had a very obscure
section that hinted at actually having some real meaning.
He picked up his notes again and studied them, along with
consulting his database on the computer. Ami would come
by once a week and do the work involved in setting up the
cross-referenced system based on his notes that would
really yield results.
His watch chimed, reminding him of the hour. He'd
have to leave in two hours to pick up Usagi and go to the
park. He stood and stretched for a few minutes before going
over to the side of the library that held the books he had
gone through. Something was nagging at him about the book
on the desk.
Somewhere on that set of shelves was the clue he was
looking for. He was getting very close to something
important but he lacked the piece of the puzzle that would
let him get a glimpse of the total picture. All he needed
was a hint of where it was. All he wanted was something
that would prove him wrong.
His next decision was almost one of desperation. Ami
gave him an updated printout of the list of books he had
covered. Taking it out, he cut it into equal sized pages
and taped them together into a rough square. Then he
smoothed it out on top of one of the large tables in the
middle of the room and climbed up so he was sitting
cross-legged next to it.
Several minutes of steady breathing calmed his body
while his meditative exercises calmed his mind. He slipped
off the necklace he wore under his shirt. There was a ring
on it, a plain silver band set with a teardrop shaped
piece of turquoise.
The ring was the only thing that he had that
belonged to his mother in this time. He still couldn't
remember her actual face. Only the photographs came to
his mind when he tried. The ring had survived the fire
that had destroyed everything else in the car.
He was hoping that it would serve as a link to
his mother in the past. She had been rumored to have
the gift of prophecy and he was in need of some kind
of guidance. Maybe her gift had been passed on to him
somehow, and he intoned a brief prayer that it be so.
Closing his eyes, he extended the hand that held
the chain, letting the ring swing to and fro underneath
it. He started in a slow, deliberate spiral pattern that
would bring the ring over each part of the chart.
A strange feeling made him stop at one point and
set the ring down. He only opened his eyes long enough
to make a small mark on the paper with a pen before he
closed his eyes again. The chart was turned several times
at random until he had no clear idea which side was
towards him. After that, he did the same test again.
It took him ten more minutes to repeat the exercise
two more times. He'd kept his eyes closed the whole time
after making that first mark. A bead of sweat dropped from
his hair, a sign of the effort that the concentration on
the simple spell had taken from him. He
didn't yet have perfect faith in this method, but it might
be a start for him.
The marks were all on one section of one page, which
gave him a glimmer of hope that he had done the exercise
correctly. The names were familiar to him, so he took a
few of those books down at random to skim over them for
some hint of why they were indicated.
The fifth book gave him an idea and a reference to
one of the books that he hadn't read yet. He took out the
book that was mentioned and skimmed over it to acquaint
himself with the contents. He wouldn't have the time to
read it today, but a mention of a tribe of Australian
aborigines caught his eye. The practice the book said
they employed was a new one to him, so he wrote a note
to put this new book into his queue of ones to be read
and walked down the hallway to the main library.
Thick carpets muffled his footsteps as he opened
the doors and walked to the computer. It only took a
moment to boot up and give him a list of books that
had the information he desired.
The first one was an old book that was first
published in 1953. The notes on the computer mentioned
that the descriptions were accurate but that the author's
conclusions were in question in view of the decisions
reached in a more recent work. He opened it carefully
because of the old spine and almost jumped when a slip
of paper that was yellow with age fell to the floor.
Endymion-sama,
Please join me upstairs in the observation room.
I'd like to speak with you in private.
************************************************
" Hi, Ami-chan!" Usagi called out, waving at
her friend.
" Good morning," Ami cheerfully replied. " Are
you ready to see how you did?"
" I guess," the blonde grinned. " I've been a
little nervous about this one, but I think that it's
been a force of habit for so long to be worried rather
than actually being worried."
Ami laughed at the humor in her voice and started
walking with her to the bulletin board outside the school
offices. Her sandals tapped out a steady beat on the
pavement until they took a short cut across the grass.
" I'm hoping to have broken eighty percent,
Ami-chan," Usagi said after a few minutes. They would
have normally gotten the test results yesterday, but
there was some sort of delay in getting their tests
graded and the results would go up on a Saturday.
" That would be great if you did," she smiled.
Usagi had come a long way in her studies, although Ami
didn't like to think about the reasons why. This
turnaround had come in the semester following Minako's
death. Usagi was doing much better in her classes, but
her reasons for doing better were a source of worry for
Ami. She should be studying to make herself better.
" Hey," she exclaimed, eager to change the
subject. " There's your new boyfriend."
" Ami-chan!" Usagi complained. " Shino-san is
not, I repeat, not my new boyfriend."
The young man at the board turned and waved as Ami
giggled. He wore the older style of school uniform in
black with a high collar rather than the shirt and tie
that were currently preferred. He had short, black hair
and was taller than the girls, but not by too much.
The gossip said that he didn't have many friends
because of the accident. Shino Takayama had been the
only survivor of a car wreck that had killed his natural
parents. Head trauma had robbed him of his memories of
the time before he was sixteen. He could read and write,
for example, but he didn't remember going to school to
learn it. This was his second semester at their school.
Green eyes were covered with another stigma in the
minds of most of the students at the school. He wore
glasses, and while they weren't as bad as the ones like
Umino wore, they were bad enough. He was considered
different. Usagi had been one of the few to try and
befriend him. They got along well with each other and
even had some classes together.
" Hi, Shino!" Usagi called out.
" Hi, Shino-san," Ami respectfully added.
" Usagi-chan, Ami-chan, " he slightly bowed to
them, more out of respect than formality. Ami had been
one of the others that had looked beyond the gossip,
although a lot of it had been at Usagi's prompting at
first. He had even reminded Mako-chan of her sempai
for about a week. " I'm not too surprised at the
results today."
" As always, Ami-chan gets to put another notch
on her pencil case," Usagi drawled, making her friend
blush. " How'd you do, Shino?"
" The usual," he admitted. " Good in math and
science and I flopped in the arts again. I hate those
subjects. Math has one answer, not all this stuff about
how you feel and if the teacher happens to agree with
you today."
Ami stepped up to look over the lists that showed
the exams for several subjects and was joined by the
others.
" Shino-san," she said. " Second on two of the
lists isn't just good. That's great work."
" Ami-chan," he blushed slightly. " Please, don't
call me that. I'm not used to it and I'd rather my
friends didn't use it when referring to me. Besides,
my scores aren't all that great. Great would have been
beating you out for the top place."
" All right, Shino," she agreed, still looking
down the list. She had forgotten about that part. He had
been adopted by an American serviceman and his wife. Both
of his parents were fluent in English, but his father had
some troubles with Japanese. Shino had picked up his
father's unease with the honorifics being used among
friends. To him, his using the '-chan' suffix while
addressing them was a sign of their friendship." Still,
you did very well on your tests."
She knew something was up when Usagi started
getting that little smile on her face. It had started
showing up as her grades began to improve. Her eyes
finally found Usagi's scores. They were just a little
higher on the lists than she had been looking.
" Usagi!" she yelled as she grabbed and hugged
her. " An 80.2% average. You did it!"
" Congratulations," Shino said, clapping the blond
on the shoulder.
" I told you, Ami-chan," Usagi exclaimed. " I
thought I did good on those."
" She certainly did," Shino added a few moments
later and began to scan the tops of the lists again
before muttering under his breath. " Again? This is
getting silly."
" I'm sorry?" Ami asked.
" Here," he explained, pointing at the
lists. " The spots for numbers four and five are
held by the same two people again, the same ones
who have been there for just about every test this
year in every subject."
Ami and Usagi looked at the test results with a
good idea of what they would find.
4. Michiru Kaioh
5. Haruka Ten'ou
" You two know them," Shino asked. " What gives
here? I know they were a year ahead of us, but there
is no way that they were held back because of poor
grades."
They traded a quick glance that the boy missed.
" It wasn't academic problems," Usagi hastily
began. " Almost all of their school records were
destroyed when their school blew up a couple of years
ago. They were in an advanced honors program at the
Infinity Academy
" When they were going to be placed into the
regular school system, one of the administrators
expressed some misgivings about their achievements
in that advanced classes and whether they had truly
accomplished what they stated. Michiru and Haruka are
both very proud, and they demanded that they be
allowed to repeat the grade that they almost finished
if the school board had any suspicion that they didn't
properly earn it. That's why they're in our grade."
Usagi breathed a quick smile of relief as it
appeared that Shino had bought the story. Michiru and
Haruka had been in an advanced class at the Infinity
Academy that was teaching at two grades above her own,
it turned out, but they had changed their records and
forced their new school district to let them into Usagi's
grade in order to be near her.
Haruka had been adamant about that after they got
back together following the fights against the magi,
regardless of the difficulties. They didn't even seem
to mind that they were repeating old material. Since
they could easily do the homework, it gave them more
time to help take care of Minako, and allowed Hotaru
to only have to take care of the girl during school
hours.
" That was the school in the middle of that new
business district, the Mugen Delta, right? Did they
ever figure out what happened?" the boy asked.
" Gas main," she and Ami said in unison and then
blushed at their timing. That had been the most plausible
explanation for the destruction of the Infinity Academy.
" Takayama!" a deep voice yelled out suddenly,
making them jump in surprise. A group of four of the
school's baseball players were gathered around them. The
other three students there were moving away from the
coming confrontation.
" Let me guess," Ami said with a sinking feeling.
She'd been on the receiving end of their threats
before. " He ruined the grading curve for your class?"
" Hey," Kawaguchi, the oldest, added. " Guess
who's here as well. It's little Ami Mizuno."
" Good," another rumbled. " I can make sure she
regrets that perfect score in chemistry last year. I
didn't get to play because of her."
" Stop it!" Usagi yelled, springing in between
Ami and one reaching for her. He sneered at her and
shoved her back. She stumbled and fell into the wall
by bulletin board. Her head hit the wall and
everything went black.
***********************************************
He spent several minutes considering the note
itself, let alone the implications of the message. The
paper was clearly older than he was. All the time in
the library had made him into something of an expert on
old paper. It was a heavy sheet of a quality that you
just didn't get today, regardless of the expense. The
watermark was of a company that had probably gone out of
business years ago. The ink was even translucent.
The faded writing was another hint of something
being amiss. It was handwritten English, which
automatically excluded any of the Inner Senshi from
reading it. Ami might be able to decipher it given some
time or her computer, and Minako was too young. That
meant that the people who might run across the note and
understand it were either himself or the Outer Senshi.
Hotaru had gotten a good grasp of the language since
starting to learn it a year ago while Haruka and Michiru
could pass as natives of several countries.
Some other concerns were put aside as he decided
to check this out. He knew the room that the note referred
to. The house was done in a style that imitated a famous
mansion in America, even down to the small sitting room at
the highest point of the roof. He and Usagi had spent quite
a bit of time up there enjoying the view and getting very
close to doing some of the things that they had generally
agreed to wait until she turned eighteen to do again.
He checked the security system as he went to the
stairs leading up to that room and found the alarms still
enabled. That was how he had set them after coming in this
morning to start working. Taking a deep breath, he started
up the stairs and into the room at the top.
All four walls had large windows that gave a
remarkable view of the hills and the city below. There
were four chairs, two couches, one coffee table and one
occupant in the room. He stopped and silently stared in
shock despite the clues that indicated that it was her.
" Your Majesty," she greeted him, inclining her
head and making her dark green hair shimmer in the
morning sunlight. She wasn't wearing her fuku. Instead,
she was clad in a sharp looking, dark pink jacket and
long skirt with a white blouse and boots. As usual, it
looked great on her and was a good complement to her
hair and skin color. " Please, won't you be seated?"
" Setsuna," he stammered, sitting down
automatically. " We... We thought you were dead."
" I'm not," she admitted a moment later and
poured him a cup of tea from the service on a platter
on the table. " I don't even know if I can. That isn't
important, though. I need you to promise something to
me before we go any further."
" I'll try," he cautiously replied.
" Actually," she continued. " Two things. First,
you need to promise me that you won't tell any of the
others about this conversation for several days. Nobody.
Not even Usagi-chan."
" I'm sure you have your reasons and believe their
validity," he said. " I can agree with that for the
moment."
" That's good," she said and then broke into a
smile, one of the few times he had ever seen her do
it. " Now, here's the important part. I want you to
stop moping about today. Your daughter will be seeing
you today for the first time in over a year of her
time. She shouldn't see the face that you've been
wearing for the past few weeks."
" I... " he almost smiled at what she said and
the words of agreement died in his throat. He took a
drink of the tea to give him a moment to recover. Try
as he might, he couldn't keep the look of defeat off of
his face. " It's bad, Setsuna. I think I know where we
all went wrong. I pray every night that it's a mistake,
but I just can't get the idea out of my head."
She stood and walked over to take a seat next to
him. One of her hands took his in a comforting grip. " I'm
sorry, Mamoru-san, but I'm afraid that you're on the
right track with your work."
Setsuna stopped for several minutes to carefully
consider what she was going to say while she comforted
him. Mamoru didn't even notice the time going by. He
was in too much pain from what he was realizing. She
used one of the napkins on the tray to wipe away a
line of tears on his face.
" We all have a great deal of power, Mamoru-san.
Power that comes with a great deal of responsibilities.
We have to meet the obligations that our position demands
of us."
" Why her?" he whispered. " She's already done so
much for so many people. They don't have any idea of what
she has gone through for them, and now she has to do
this?"
" Are you so sure that she wouldn't agree to it?"
she asked. " You've seen her give so much of herself. Has
she ever hesitated to make someone else's life better,
and do you think that she's not going to do the same
thing again if it comes down to it?"
He mutely shook his head.
" There's something else, isn't there?"
" Yes," he finally forced himself to admit it and
sighed. " I don't love the princess. I don't love Sailor
Moon. I fell in love with a dear, sweet girl by the name
of Usagi Tsukino. I love her more than I do life
itself. Why do I have to give her up?
" Why does she have to give herself up?"
************************************************
The sound of glass breaking brought her to a few
moments later. The back of her head hurt and she could
feel moisture on her scalp. Shino was curled up on the
ground a couple of meters away and was clutching his
stomach. His nose was bleeding, and Kawaguchi was
stepping on his glasses. She could feel a few tears
running down her face. Sympathy for him, she decided,
or maybe just the pain.
The one who had shoved her was named Takeru. He
was stepping towards Ami, who was standing by her with
her back to him and looking down at her. Ami had her
transformation wand in the palm of her hand, hidden
from the view of the others. Usagi almost gasped in
surprise at the look on her face. She had never before
seen anger in Ami's eyes.
" No!" she yelled out as a movement caught her
eye, desperately hoping that it sounded more like a
command instead of a scream of fear or pain. Anything
to stop her. This wasn't worth it.
Behind one of the ones in the back, Hotaru put
away the Glaive. She had been about to use it to deadly
effect. Instead, she kicked his knee from the side as
she walked past him and he went down screaming. Another
two steps put her right behind Kawaguchi, who had knelt
down and was cocking his arm back to hit Shino again.
She hooked her arm around his and stopped the
blow. He grunted and tried to break free, turning slightly
towards her as he strained against her grasp. Her arm
didn't move. She shifted her weight and brought her knee
up under his chin, knocking him out cold.
The other one who had been watching was already in
flight. Ami had turned back around at the sounds that were
the result of Hotaru's intervention. She could see that
Takeru had frozen in shock as Hotaru simply stared at him.
It was the same look on her face that they had seen at a
planetarium just before she had been possessed. Hotaru's
face promised mayhem and that she was very capable of
delivering it.
Ami took advantage of it by walking around in front
of him and kicking him in between the legs. He'd be in
pain, but it was better than what Hotaru might have done
to the one who had actually hurt Usagi.
" Shino," Usagi exclaimed and staggered over
towards him. Hotaru stopped her before she had even
gone three steps. A warm hand was gently pressed against
the back of her head and the pain receded. It was very
soothing and she could feel the power that Hotaru was
using.
" Wait a few moments before getting up after a
head wound, Usagi-san," she whispered to the blonde. " I
need to make sure that you're all right first. Luckily,
it was just a little scrape from the wall."
She helped her sit down next to him and told her
to stay there for a few minutes before she walked over
to the water fountain. Ami was kneeling on the other
side of the boy and was helping him to sit up.
" You shouldn't have done that, Usagi-chan," he
admonished her and then smiled suddenly. " Thank you."
" Are you all right?" she asked him as he looked
around on the ground. Ami handed him the frames to
his glasses and he sighed in exasperation.
" It's just a bloody nose," he said as he
examined the frames. " I rolled with the one to my
stomach and acted like it was worse than it was. They
usually don't do anything when I'm on the ground,
though."
He inclined his head in gratitude when Hotaru
came back and handed him a wet handkerchief. " Thanks,
Hotaru-chan."
" Shouldn't we tell the school administration?" Ami
asked while he cleaned up his face.
" No," the girl with the black hair smiled. " You
didn't see who was watching the whole thing. Umino's
protoge` saw everything. I talked to him over by the
water fountain. The whole school will know he was
beaten up by a girl before homeroom on Monday."
Shino laughed at that, clearly amused. " I've been
in the same math class as Kawaguchi ever since I got
here. He's tried pushing me around before this, but this
is a far better revenge than ruining his grades."
" Usagi-san," Hotaru quietly said, catching her
attention. She tapped her watch.
" Shino," she asked while getting up. " Are you
going to be all right? I have to be going. I've got an
appointment that I can't miss."
" Yes," he smiled as he stood up. " I'm sorry you
got dragged into this."
" I'll make sure that these three are all
right," Hotaru added. " You're going to be late,
Usagi-san."
" I'd best be going, too," the boy added,
giving a little bow of gratitude towards
Hotaru. " Thank you."
" Bye, Shino," Usagi said as he walked off.
" Does this happen much?" Hotaru asked in a
cold tone of voice.
" A few times," Ami admitted. " It's usually
just some verbal abuse and a few vague threats. I
just ignore them."
The girl took a deep breath and held it for
several seconds before exhaling and relaxing. She
turned to the others. " I guess it's a good thing
that my train was early and I decided to walk to
your house."
" How's your father, Hotaru-chan," Usagi asked
as she picked up her purse and made sure everything
was still there.
" He's doing well," she replied. " I hardly
had a chance to see him this time, but I had only
gone up there to drop off some documents and a few
books he wanted. We had dinner and talked for a while.
That new bullet train line to the north sure is a big
help."
She looked to make sure that Shino had turned
the corner around the side of the building before
continuing. " Ami-chan, stay with her until Mamoru-san
picks her up. I've got a funny feeling about today for
some reason. I'll see you at the park. Now, get going
before you're late."
The two girls complied, walking off towards Usagi's
house to meet her real boyfriend. Hotaru got one boy on
the ground to get up. It only took a single mean look
to give him all the inspiration he needed to hobble away.
The big one, she realized after taking a closer look,
would be out for a while longer. That just left the
one who was still writhing in pain.
" Hello, Takeru," she greeted him as she picked
him up by the front of his jacket and hoisted him to
his feet with one hand. He tried to run and realized
that she was actually holding him a few centimeters
above the ground. " We have some business to discuss
somewhere private."
To his astonishment, she jumped up to the top of
the walkway as lightly as if she was jumping up a couple
of stairs. She didn't seem to notice that she was
carrying a guy who outweighed her by about thirty to
forty kilos. The next jump took them to the top of
the administration building. He began to panic as she
walked around to the other side of the building and
held him out over the ledge to dangle above the ground
two stories below the whole way there.
" You hurt her," she softly declared. He would
have preferred a scream of rage to that quiet
voice. " You made her cry."
Her violet eyes bored into his mind. He couldn't
look away. He wanted to scream. Nothing came out of
his mouth.
" If you ever touch her again, if you ever hurt
her again or cause her any pain, I'll be back. I won't
be so nice, either. The next time you'll be dead."
She released him and he was finally able to scream
as he fell. It was like he had been freed from a spell.
His arms and legs frantically began to move as he tried
to run in mid-air. She smiled at the look on his face as
he fell into the overflowing garbage bin below, imagining
just how ripe he was going to smell.
As she walked away to another side of the building
and jumped down to the ground, another person kept a
close watch on her from the shadows of the air-conditioner
on the top of the gym. It was a much taller building and
gave her an excellent view of what had just occurred and
the fight that had preceded it.
The sun hit her as she stepped to the edge. Her
long, auburn hair glowed in the morning sun that picked
out the gold highlights of the black clothes and armor
she wore. This promised to be interesting, she thought
with a smile.
************************************************
" I wasn't in any danger, Mamo-chan," she
pleaded. " I was with Ami-chan and Hotaru-chan."
" I know, Usako. That still doesn't make it any
easier for me, though. I should have been there sooner."
" Listen," she scolded him and pushed him down
onto the bench nearest the dock in what had become
their favorite park. She bent down towards him with
a stern look on her face and suddenly kissed him. They
held it for a few minutes before she sat down next to
him and spoke in a quiet voice. " This is a happy day,
Mamo-chan. Don't feel like that. If I was in real trouble,
you would have been there. You're always there when it
counts."
" Thank you, love," he whispered pulling her head
down onto his shoulder and putting an arm around
her. " You always can make me feel better."
They stayed that way for several minutes before
noticing another nervous couple had arrived in the same
area. Artemis was about to wear a circular path in the
grass from his pacing in a circle around Luna, who
calmly sat under a nearby tree and waited.
" Seven minutes," he said in response to her
unasked question after he glanced at his watch. " We're
not the only ones waiting for a daughter, either. I
guess we had-"
He sprang forward while Usagi screamed in horror
as a patch of pink clouds suddenly appeared high over
the dock that stretched out into the pond. Normally
they took a few moments to form, and it also was only
a few meters above the water. They had never seen it
happen above the hard, wooden surface of the dock.
She came into existence fifteen meters up in the
air. He was in mid-leap as she plummeted towards the
ground. She had just managed to start to get into the
correct position to take a fall when his arm caught her
around the middle.
They landed in the pond with a thunderous splash
as Usagi came running up along with the cats. She didn't
stop and dove in after them. Artemis nearly didn't stop
either but thought better of it. They had seen only a girl
falling from the sky, and not a girl and a cat.
" Chibi-usa-chan!" she cried out as she broke the
surface near them. To her consternation they were beginning
to laugh as they looked at each other and then he pulled
the girl into an embrace. They were both either unhurt or
too happy to see each other to notice any injuries.
She found the water there was deep enough to make
her stand on the tips of her toes while he had his
shoulders above the water. Usagi made to embrace them
as well until the girl pulled away from her.
" I want to be with my Daddy," she tried to say
to her in a stern tone of voice and utterly failing. The
giggles were giving her true feelings away. " You said
I'm growing so quickly that you won't buy me any new
clothes."
Usagi began to look crestfallen. That was the
moment the girl chose to jump away from her father and
onto her. Both went under for a moment and came up
holding each other and laughing. Usagi gave her a
quick, fierce hug before shoving her towards the dock.
" Here you go," Mamoru said as he boosted Usagi
up to where she could climb up onto the dock on her
own and did the same for Chibi-usa.
" Chibi-usa-chan?" she whispered in surprise as
they stood up. The pink ponytails had been about ten
centimeters longer even before they had gotten wet,
but the biggest surprise was that the tips of the girl's
odango came up just over her own shoulders.
" Mama," she sniffled and threw herself into her
mother's arms for a proper hug. They were both crying as
Mamoru came over and wrapped them up in his arms as well
for a few minutes before nudging them towards the
walkway.
" Small Lady?" Luna ventured from where the cats
now sat, safely away from any of the wet and dripping
humans. Chibi-usa slipped from her mother's embrace and
walked over to them. She knelt down and gave each a kiss
on the forehead.
" Your daughter sends her love and regrets," she
told them as she fondly looked at them.
" I take it there were some problems, then?" Luna
asked politely, but she was plainly hoping for some
information about her daughter.
" I'm probably a grandfather already," Artemis
muttered, half in jest and half in fear. Luna almost
smacked him in the back of his head.
" The last time I went home," the little girl
began as she took a seat between the other two sitting
on the bench. " The transit was pretty bad for both of
us. This one coming back was even worse. Diana would
have had a very tough time with it right now."
" The time-keys are still working, but obviously
not as smoothly," Artemis commented.
" How could you ever guess?" the young girl wryly
added while looking down at the plain, thick white dress
she wore. It was functional but nearly shapeless. " We
didn't even know if anything I took with me to this time
would make it back since the stuff I took forward the
last time didn't survive the trip. Usagi-chan made
this from the drapes, I think, and now it's all wet
and ruined."
" Chibi-usa-chan," Mamoru said, and the girl
turned her gaze from Usagi, who was on the receiving
end of a teasing look, to the two cats. " Diana is
all right, correct?"
" I'm sorry," she apologized to them. " Diana
is fine except that she's having a tough time adjusting
to being able to change into a human. We all thought
that the trip would be too much stress for her right
now."
" Couldn't they send her later?" Luna wistfully
asked. The girl took a deep breath before answering.
" Not... not without Pu. We're conserving the
key's energy. We haven't heard from her and Mama...
Mother doesn't want to force the gates open. This isn't
the first time Pu hasn't answered the door to the gates
in a long time, although she usually tells us to leave
her alone first."
" I'm sorry, Chibi-usa-chan, but we haven't seen
her," Usagi whispered and then sadly shook her head. The
words failed her. The young man had a pained look on his
face as well, but the two girls missed it since they were
looking at each other.
" C'mon, everybody," Mamoru spoke in an effort to
cheer them up. " The car's right over there. Let's go
home and get cleaned up, then we can get this girl into
a mall. I know that none of her old things are going to
fit anymore."
The news of a quick shopping trip lightened the
spirits of both of the young ladies as they walked back
to the car and ignored the glances of curious passers-by
who wanted to stare at them for being so soaked and so
happy.
************************************************
" Pain is a fascinating sensation," he commented
as they sat on the roof of the observation deck of the
Tokyo Tower. The same winds that blew her long hair and
his single, thin braid made the tower gently sway
underneath them.
" I don't have any idea of what you see in it," she
sniffed. " I was human and had more pain than I could
ever want to deal with. Why do you seek it out?"
" I don't quite 'seek it out'," he replied, idly
straightening the collar of the black school uniform
he wore. " It is interesting to experience it, however.
I consider it very insightful."
" We don't needs insights into their minds," she
burst out. " Why don't you just let me take care of it?
The one who was reborn _may_ be a danger to me, but
the rest are no match for the power we've been given."
" Patience, Flare," he said in an attempt to
placate her anger. " There are two of them who have
been reborn and this isn't about defeating them in
battle, or at least not yet. I want them to react in
a certain manner, and that takes more time."
" Are you so sure that they will jump through
your hoops?"
" Actually," he grinned in response, his tawny
eyes sparkling. " This method will be far easier than
my first idea. I used to think that I might just make
them renounce her, but I've seen the error in that
approach. It wouldn't be painful enough to force them
like that.
" They will voluntarily do it, however, when we
give them the right reasons. Keep with the plan about
the genius girl, and light off the first warning shot
later today. All we need to do is to make them realize
the cost of supporting her. If we make it too painful
for them to go on, they'll abandon her."
" And if they don't?"
" They will die, Flare," he declared. " All of
them. Every living thing on this planet will be dead.
Except for her, of course. It will be enjoyable to
watch her suffer over a few eons."
***********************************************
The cool, clear water closed over his head as
released his hold on the rail and let himself begin
to sink into the depths of the lagoon. A silvery
stream of bubbles in front of him told him that
Madison was already on her way down. It wasn't too
surprising she was in a hurry, he grinned behind his
mask and glanced up at the receding surface.
They had spent the better part of seven months
waiting to get all the permits to do this dive. The
site wasn't hot any longer, but many of the ships
were sunk with full loads of ordinance, and that
made it dangerous to be here. Only a fool would think
otherwise about entering the waters off of Bikini
atoll.
Despite the safe readings on their Geiger counter,
he had found himself apprehensive as he prepared for the
dive. The cameras were ready, but the cameraman wasn't.
He didn't think that anyone could be unaffected by being
here. He was about to approach ground zero of a nuclear
blast and see firsthand the fruits of Operation
Crossroads.
Shortly after the second World War, the United
States had moored a number of ships off of the atoll
in order to see what the effects of a nuclear attack
would be on the vessels he was about to film. Most of
them had been severely damaged, and then the second
test, an underwater blast, had finished the job. The
few surviving ships had probably sank after one of
the nearly two dozen more atomic explosions, and the
entire area had been off limits for years.
That was the main reason that they had wanted
to do a dive here. There were several interested
parties who wanted a copy of the tapes. They ranged
from the production companies that made documentaries
for cable TV to the organizations for the sailors
assigned to each particular ship. The area was in
pristine condition from having so few divers allowed
to enter it.
This was going to be one of their big breaks,
he realized as he checked the camera and his gear.
Producers who made documentaries for both programs
about diving and history had been calling them ever
since the word got out that they had been allowed to
make the descent and film the wreckage. He'd start
with the Saratoga, which should be below them.
Madison had stopped about fifty feet below
the surface and he could see her smile despite her
mask. She waved her arm around and gave him the
thumbs-up. He agreed with a nod. The water clarity
was incredible today, and it was bright enough for
him to make a quick measurement with one of the
waterproof gauges.
He gave her a thumbs-up of his own. It was
nearly as bright as at the surface on some of the
days they had filmed they had filmed the Great
Barrier Reef in Australia, and they were a lot
deeper right now. The sun was still rising, he
recalled, and that must be why it was getting
even brighter. This was certainly going to be
a wonderful day.
************************************************
" I think these are done," she decided and popped
one of the shu mai into her mouth. Haruka gasped in
surprise at the temperature and started rapidly exhaling
to cool off the dumpling.
" It serves you right," Michiru giggled as she
handed her iced tea to the taller woman. Haruka quickly
took a drink and sighed in relief before finishing the
dumpling.
" Someone had to see if they were done," she
protested, and tried to make her voice sound like she
was hurt by her friend's comment. She knew she was
failing miserably, so she turned back to the fire,
closed the lid of the steamer and sulked. It had only
taken her a few hours to make the steamer and the
stand out of some spare metal at her garage the
previous morning.
Michiru stood and brushed a few bits of grass
from her pale blue sundress before walking over behind
Haruka. The blonde tensed up at first when she began
to massage her shoulders and neck, but then relaxed
and loudly exhaled.
" You're as tight as a drum," Michiru whispered
as she looked around them. They were at the top of a
hill in a park near her parent's old house. Since it
became a gated community last year the number of
visitors to the park had dropped, and they almost
had it to themselves. The only other visitors were
a few families down by the base who hadn't even tried
joining them at the top.
Makoto and Ami were setting up a tray with plates
and condiments several meters away in the spot with the
better view. The steamer they were keeping an eye on
needed to be on a more level surface, which was the
reason for their being away from the others. Rei was
splitting her attention between watching Hotaru helping
Minako to try and walk on the sloping grass without
falling down and setting up a carafe of hot tea.
She leaned down and straightened the collar on
Haruka's white shirt before giving her a brief embrace.
The other woman leaned back against her for a moment,
drawing in some of the calmness that surrounded Michiru.
They both felt that they were going to need it today.
*****************************
The End of the Beginning {1/3}