"This planet is so stupid, it's so ugly, it's so empty, it's so plain, it makes me want to scream, I hate it so much, stupid stupid stupid stupid-"
"Yaten, are you okay?"
Yaten glances up from the wound on her knee, over to the girl standing at the door. It's Naru. She has her eyebrows raised in what Yaten thinks is amusement, and has a small box in her hand. The box has a plus sign on the front of it.
"I'm fine." Yaten huffs, refocusing back to the wound on her knee. She narrows her eyebrows and continues to work on healing herself. A light green glow takes the wound as she focuses.
"How does your healing work?" Naru asks as she takes a seat next to Yaten on her bed.
Yaten's eyebrow twitches as she tries to ignore how the mattress dipping has put her a little off balance, and she redirects her energy.
With the box set next to the two of them, Naru leans over to inspect the cuts on Yaten's knee and legs. The cuts on her legs are shallow enough where Yaten doesn't have to waste any energy healing them, as they can heal naturally without any issues, but the wound on her knee is a different story. It's open too far for a simple bandage and some sleep. The skin needs to be stitched, or in Yaten's case, healed with magic.
"You're healing your body with your own energy, wouldn't that drain you?"
"Huh?" Yaten glances over at Naru for a moment, before looking at her knee. The wound has already formed a scab and Yaten can feel the magic accelerating the growth of the new skin. Just two more minutes…
"Would it be wrong to say your healing is a bit of a paradox?"
Yaten is silent for a long time, focusing all of her energy into the wound and the workings of the skin. Finally, when all that's left is soft new skin, she turns her attention to Naru. "Have you been talking to Taiki?" She looks annoyed at Naru's question, and gently rubs her gloved fingers over the new skin. It's soft and needs a few minutes before she can move her knee. "I'm not taking energy from myself. It's just energy that I already have that is meant for healing. Why would I have healing powers but not have a source for it, that's so stupid!"
Naru rolls her eyes at the younger girl and takes a closer look at the skin. It looks as if a scab has just fallen off.
"This is cool," Naru says, and pulls herself away from Yaten's knee. She grabs a hold of the box she brought in, and places it in her lap. She takes out some bandages, some ointment, a bag of cotton balls, and a bottle of liquid and places it down. "Have you tried to see how human medicine works on your body?"
"Nope." Yaten has never used human medicine on her. She has no idea what's in it or what it'll do to her. She wouldn't risk her own health like that. Taiki has mentioned in passing that since earthlings look so similar to the people of the Kinmoku kingdom, they may have similar body structure and inner workings. But, Yaten won't take that chance. It took her a week to even try to eat human food.
"Well…" Oh no. "How about you let me try some medicine out on that nasty gash on your side." Gash? Yaten blinks and turns to take a look at the gash, but a shock of pain stops her. She didn't realize she got cut there… The youma must've gotten her a lot worse than she expected.
"No, I don't trust human medicine. I can do it myself." She grumbles, and tries to grab a hold of the gash, but the way her body twists causes pain to shoot down her back. "Ow!"
"You're not going to be able to grab the cut by yourself comfortably." Naru says with a tone that reminds Yaten too much of Seiya when she's being cocky for Yaten's comfort. "And, it's dirty, too! Haven't you been cleaning your cuts out properly?"
"Of course I do!" Yaten hisses, "That's what I was trained to do! I just didn't notice the wound! Don't talk down to me." Her posture changes and she looks defensive. Her cheeks flushed red in anger.
"You're not going to be able to heal this properly, if what Taiki said about your healing ability is true."
"Stop talking about me to Taiki!"
A pillow is thrown at Naru, but she still manages to dodge it at the close proximity they're at. Naru shakes her head and opens the class of liquid, and pours some of it against a cotton ball.
Yaten sniffs the air, and tries to move away from Naru. "Oh, no, don't you dare touch me with that human medicine!" Naru just moves closer.
"It's not medicine, dumbo." Naru snorts, rolling her eyes. "It's just alcohol, it'll clean out the cut. It's like the stuff you have in your bag, which I can tell you're running low on!"
"Why," Yaten's voice sounds strained, angry, "are you going through my stuff, you nosy bit—"
"And!" Naru shouts over Yaten, "I figure I can clean out the dirt, and if you're not comfortable with the medicine I have, we can just wrap it up until it's healed enough where you'll be able to heal it without causing yourself pain!"
"This makes no sense!" Yaten yells, throwing her arms up in the air. "Why would I let you," Yaten motions her arms at Naru, "wrap it up and let it heal naturally when I, Sailor Star Healer, can just heal it myself? This is one of Usagi's stupid plans, isn't it? Merging, or mixing, or-"
Naru bops Yaten on the nose, causing her to make a sound rather than continue her screeching. "Bonding is the word you're looking for," Naru answers, using the moment to interrupt and take over the conversation. "And no. I just wanted to help. You're already healing the others after fights, I just wanted to see if I can help."
"I don't want your help." Yaten says quietly, and leans over to pull off one of her boots. She hasn't de-transformed yet. She still has to wait until all her wounds are clean since she already started healing then tries to de-transform with open cuts. If she still has wounds that are open while the healing process is in order, her body will automatically start the process and any and all dirt that normally would be destroyed by her natural healing powers get trapped and can easily cause infections. If her teacher was still alive, she would've learned how to de-transform without hurting herself because of bacteria. But… that's not going to happen.
"I can do this by myself," Yaten says quietly, trying not to lose herself in thought. "I've been doing this by myself, and," her voice gets louder and harsher, "I don't need a stupid human to try to help me now that her and her bestie realized they're guardians! Oh wait, I forgot, you're not even a guardian!"
"Are you done snapping at me?" Naru asks, sounding unimpressed. Without waiting for Yaten to reply, she goes "Good, now sit still so I can start!"
The moment the alcohol touches the gash in Yaten's skin, Naru is reminded of an angry cat. An angry cat with its claws out and ready to attack. One that'll leave only when you're covered in claw marks.
A fight between Naru and Yaten the cat. In any other circumstances, Naru would be sure she would lose, but not this time. Yaten can only move so far with a gash in her side and a freshly healed knee. Every time she tries to move her knee, pain shoots down her leg as a warning that it's not ready. Her usually long nails are covered by her leather gloves, making her unable to claw Naru's face. All Naru has to do is rub the rubbing alcohol in more until Yaten screeches herself out of energy.
"Are you done fussing now?" Naru asks with a smirk on her face. Yaten just grumbles, pissed that she can't rip the older girl apart for this. Naru hands Yaten a small piece of fabric to bite on as she cleans out the dirty.
"I'm going to put some ointment on the cut, okay? Not too much, but enough to try to see how it works on you." A sound of distress comes from Yaten, but Naru just soothingly rubs her in the side. "If something happens, I'll wash it out with some water. My mom had to patch me up when I cut my arm on some class in her store before, I can do this."
Yaten looks miserable as Naru squeezes a generous amount of ointment in her hand and begins rubbing it over the cut. Yaten shivers at the cool feeling of the ointment. This is it. This is the end. The medicine will begin to burn and she'll turn into dust. Her thirteen years of life, a waste. She's only been a guardian for such a short time, and she hasn't even finished her first mission. A waste of a life, she'd say. Humiliating, she was going to die beca-
"Whoa."
Yaten blinks out of her thoughts as Naru taps on her arm. "Your wound. It looks like it's already beginning to scab over…"
"And?" Why is that impressive? Medicine is supposed to heal things. Naru can't be that stupid.
"It's not supposed to scab over that quickly…" Naru looks confused, but Yaten can see the shine of her eye that reads that she's impressed. "The book I read on skin wounds say bodies form scabs but not within a minute.
"Ugh." Yaten feels as if she's listening to Taiki try to explain how human biology works. She fell asleep to get out of that lecture. Maybe that'll work here…
"In our bodies, when we get cut, the blood begins to clot up so blood doesn't escape."
"Same, who cares?" Yaten can usually fall asleep on anything, all she has to do is close her eyes and she's out in a few minutes.
"Depending on the cut, it can scab up at the very minimum a few hours."
"Okay." Her eyes are closing.
"But it's barely been two minutes."
"I don't care, just wrap it up if it's fine!" Yaten snaps, feeling her temper rise again. She doesn't have time for this.
Naru lets out a sound, and grabs the bandages. "I can't believe how unimpressed you are!" She shakes her head and begins covering up the new scab.
It takes about a minute before Naru pats the bandaged to signal she's done. Yaten grumbles, and lies on her side. She ignores Naru's question about how she's feeling and responses with a soft "hmppft."
Naru stares down at Yaten and lets out a huff. "You know what, Yaten? You're not a fun person to be around!" She gets off the bed, ignoring the groan from Yaten who dislikes how the mattress shifts, and stands in front of the girl. "Every time I try to talk to you, to be friends with you, all you can do is groan and complain! You've been working with Sailor Moon for almost a year now, and you were friends with Usagi even longer than that, and you've made it so hard to try to relate to you and get on positive terms!
"Seiya told me you loved shopping back on your home planet, so I tried to take you to a store that Seiya said was similar to the fashion back on Kinmoku! You fell asleep in the changing room without even trying on anything! Taiki told me you love soft, fluffy things, so I brought you over a blanket my grandma made, and you called it ugly!
"I know how much you value your healing powers, so I thought maybe I could try to get through to you that way." Naru's voice is oddly soft, but only for a moment. "By helping you heal and bonding over something like that, but even now you're being a douche!"
Yaten blinks as Naru stops, breathing heavily with cheeks flushed in frustration.
Naru lets out a sound of annoyance, packs up her things, then storms out of the bedroom. The bedroom door slams shut, and Yaten hears only Naru's footsteps before the front door of the house is slammed shut.
She's quiet for a long time before she lets out a sound. "What's the point in making friends if we're just here to find out Princess?" Yaten asks the empty room. It doesn't respond. "The only reason we're on this stupid planet is because we've gotta save her."
Naru and Usagi flash in Yaten's mind, and she glares. Just because Taiki and Seiya made the mistake of making friends doesn't mean she has to, too.
"We'll be gone soon enough," she mumbles, glaring at her wall. The atmosphere of the room shifts and sadness and longing fill the room. She refuses to get attached to people that won't matter in the long run. They'll be leaving soon enough, and it'll only end in pain if she develops any sort of positive feelings towards this planet or the people on it.
It doesn't matter that they've been on this planet for almost two years already, constantly searching with any means possible. They've got to be close to finding her. There's no logical explanation for why they've been searching for so long and haven't come up with anything other than they're just getting closer.
"I'm not going to get attached to this shit planet. We're all leaving the moment our Princess is found." Yaten whispers, clutching a blanket and pulling it over herself.
She refuses.
Let me know what you think!