Title: Mesmerized
Author: Celestial DreamBlaze
Fandom: Sailor Moon/Gundam Wing
Rating: PG
Pairing: Duo/Hota
Disclaimer: Only Idea
Summary: Miserable, two certain soldiers of the different type, ponder their life and what was ahead of them. A chance meeting happens and they are never the same again.
Notes: My take on a Duo and Hotaru meeting.
*****
The room was dark; its light came from the moonlight streaking through the large window. The room appeared to be empty, the furniture come into focus, a twin sized bed, an oak desk, a closed closet, lamps and books strewn everywhere, all colored in a variation of purple. Wait… The room is not empty, in the corner of the window, behind the heavy drapes, laid a sobbing figure. Her frail form shaking as they racked with sobs.
"Why am I so different? Why am I alone here?"
The girl wiped her mysterious violet orbs of tears and sniffled lightly, her black looking purple hair plastered over her face. Her fragile and pail hands shook as she tried to get her emotions under control.
She had always seemed the strongest and mysterious one. Though she looked so weak and pitiful, there was a quality in her no one could deny, her eyes told them, told of great strength and determination along with an aura of enigma.
She had fought so hard to keep that personality lest she get hurt. There were many a times she let her guard down, allowed a bit of her true self forward and she always got hurt in the end.
Even now, her friends still regarded her with a bit of fear. They didn't understand her, wasn't sure of her, and feared she would turn to the darkness as she almost did. They didn't trust her. Didn't believe she was a good person. It wasn't so bad though, she could handle them, and it was understandable for them to be wary. What got her was the strangers; they always treated her with fear and dislike. Someone they could loathe so easily. She hated that, hated the loneliness that crept through her, hated that she could never find a friend of her own.
Yes, Chibi Usa was her friend, her best friend, but that girl wasn't going to be alive for at least a thousand years! Even then, she'd probably be old as Chibi Usa would be young and negligent to their friendship, so their friendship was short lived as much as it pained her to think of it.
She didn't understand why, and in this respect, she was innocent to the world despite her universal knowledge. She didn't know why people didn't like her for who she was. She had gotten stronger than her last life and she wasn't as pale and as weak before.
Everyone called her a freak.
Hotaru didn't understand, in the new life she was born to she had never once shown her powers of healing to anybody, so why did they call her a freak. Bitterness sprang through as the tears fell, she knew now, knew it was because she was smart. The child prodigy of the renowned Professor Tomoe rumored to be even smarter than her father. They didn't like her because she was so smart, in a school were gifted and geniuses were educated and vied for the smartest mind, they all came together to bring her down, to crush her spirit. Jealous of the knowledge she obtained and the fame she got. Jealous that her father was Professor Tomoe and jealous she had everything she could ever want. But she didn't have everything she wanted.
She wanted to feel complete.
There was this emptiness in her soul, it ached and stretched through the darkness, making her feel more lonesome in the world she thought home.
But she knew it would never happen, not in the cruel world she lived. And that was why she closed her heart. That was why she hid herself in a shell to hide it from the dismal world she lived.
**
He looked around… His eyes held sadness as he pondered his life.
Shinigami.
He had taken up the name. Some could say it was in defiance of God. A god many believed in yet a god that disappointed many. Where was God when he was lonely? Where was god when he took Father, Sister and all the orphans in the church? Where was god when many cried over their lives? The way in which they were forced to live and the wish that it was better. Where was god to grant those wishes?
Life had gotten easy after he had lost almost everything imagined. Simply to put, after all was said and done. Life got boring. He didn't know what he was doing in life, where he was headed. For as long as their would be wars he would be around to serve?
But what of after wars? When he was just a has been soldier?
What would he do to occupy himself? Changing the lives of others, hoping to better them had been his one drive, his one goal in the world. It was what made him cheerful in stark times, it was what gave him desperation in harsh times, and it was what gave him strength when he wanted to die. Not being a soldier had given him a uselessness. It made him feel unneeded in the world. Besides being a soldier, there was nothing else he could do.
He wanted to be an honest man. One who got by like everyone else. But how could he? Who would want a pickpocket? An ex-soldier? A fearful Gundam Pilot? An uneducated man? Yes, he knew how to hack, to fix, to do almost everything he learned, it didn't matter, all that mattered was the money you had or the paper that proves your educated. Sometimes life was disappointing. So disappointing that he wanted to give up, to let humanity and its self-destructing ways take them to the underworld. But then, there would be things that gave him hope. The innocent children that laughed, unaware of the problems their elders have caused. His friends and their determination to make the world better as he too wished for. People in despair, people who were too weak to fight for a cause they believed in, a cause they wish existed. The earth and its beauty, the thought of its destruction hurt far too much than he cared to feel.
What he wanted… What he wanted most in the world was to feel. To feel something besides this drive that made him fight. To feel something positive, something that makes people in the world want to live.
Duo chuckled to himself. Too deep D-man, stop thinking, go to an arcade or something.
The Gundam pilot had wandered in to Juuban. A place famed for its beauty and quietude. A place rumored to have been Hiiro's last/current stop. He was bored, so him being Duo, took a seven hundred thousand mile trek to Japan just to bother his buddy. He grinned in anticipation as he thought of Hiiro's reaction to his face. The Japanese boy would never know peace as long as he had Duo for a best friend. That Duo would make sure of.
He turned the corner.
Lightning struck and he was quickly bombarded with scenes of death and darkness. Pale violet lights crackled into the black-clouded air as he envisioned a marvelous and magnificent glowing palace made of marble. The palace hung atop a foreboding hill, its brightness like a beacon of light in the dark and ominous world. Next thing he knew, he was in the glowing palace, its spiral staircase, massive halls with dark furniture captured him. It all seemed so familiar. He heard the faint sounds of footsteps.
Duo looked up. His breath caught.
Her.
He watched her, the girl looked about 18 and moved with such a fragile and haunting grace that he couldn't help but be struck mesmerized. So mysterious was she with her dark looks and her pale skin, a contrast so beautiful that he stood gaping in awe. This one was different, there was something about her that attracted him to her and it wasn't just looks. Familiar…
Her form stilled, as if she felt the presence of being watched, slowly, excruciatingly slow, her form turned and her eyes lifted and locked to his.
Eyes that stared and would forever remember this fateful meeting.
He regarded those beautiful eyes, eyes that pierced his own and went straight to his heart. Eyes that was lonely. Like him.
He couldn't believe his luck, he had previously been moaning about his life, the solitude, the restlessness, and an angel was sent to him. It made one think of religion if they believed of that sort.
Transfixed, he stepped forward, not aware he was walking, only aware of the floating feeling and that with every step he became closer to her.
Uncharacteristically, instead of his usual 'hey babe, he introduced himself with a soft whisper, "hello."
Never changing, never moving, he watched as those beautiful orbs observed him, analyzed his motives. "Hello."
The voice was like a wind chime. Melodious with its tinkling quality yet mysterious of its whereabouts of where the wind came from.
Light filled him.