Fandom: GouGou Sentai Boukenger

Title: "Glass Sin": The Beauty And The Ashu Remix

Author: Trinity-chan

Theme: #28 "secret"

Pairing: Eiji Takaoka & Sakura Nishihori (the first straight Eiji pairing!)

Rating: G

Disclaimer: Boukenger belongs to a nice company in Japan known as Toei

Summary: What if Sakura's Prince from task 26 wasn't Satoru? What if her prince was…someone else?

It was 11:46 and Sakura was feeling tired. She stopped typing for a moment and stretched. Deciding that a bit more wouldn't hurt her, she resumed her work.

Suddenly, she could feel herself being watched and her head moved slowly to the left. She gasped. There was a very creepy young woman with ratty black hair and an evil smile on her face standing in the salon.

And she was holding the glass slipper of Cinderella in her hand.

Sakura almost immediately got to her feet. "What are you doing here? Who are…" Suddenly, she felt herself being pushed back by a strange force before her left foot began to hurt. Blue lighting crackled and slowly, much to her horror, her boot slid off her foot.

The creepy woman smiled at Sakura as she knelt before her. "Go ahead." She said. Sakura was genuinely terrified now as she slipper was slowly slipped on her foot.

NO! Her mind screamed. Suddenly, there was a flash of light and Sakura opened her eyes, unaware that they were even closed.

Sakura, you are not in Tokyo anymore. She thought to herself as she looked around. She was standing in a grand palace ballroom and surrounded by dancing women. But that wasn't the strange part. The strange part was that each and every single one of these women was dancing by themselves…and she had seen them before.

These are the women from the hospital! Sakura thought. But what are they doing here? What's going on? What's happening now?

"I'm Cinderella!" One woman declared and a whole chorus of the words followed. Sakura was still very confused.

"Cinderella?" She asked, mostly to herself. She took a moment to look around the room, taking everything in. She was wearing a beautiful pink ball gown, the glass slippers on her feet. She looked down at the slippers and back around the room, the panic in her rising.

It didn't help when she turned and saw the creepy lady from the salon standing next to her. Fearing the worst, Sakura reached for her Accellular …and found that it wasn't there.

"My Accellular…did I leave it behind?" She asked herself softly.

"You can't bring things like that here." The woman said, before turning back to watch the women dancing.

Suddenly the woman bowed as a soft, dreamy chorus of "The Prince, the Prince!" swept through the room. Sakura followed the woman's gaze and found herself facing a gentleman with long white hair tied back into a ponytail, dressed in an elegant silver colored suit, a mask obscuring this face.

There was something oddly familiar about the Prince

Sakura couldn't help but star in open-mouthed shock at him, right up until the moment when he opened his mouth to speak.

"Welcome, Cinderella." The Prince said, holding out his hand to hers. "Would you like to dance?"

"I'm…I'm…I'm Cinderella?" Sakura asked, still very confused.

"Of course. All women are Cinderella." The man laughed, a warm sound. "Their Prince has been waiting for them for a long time."

Sakura looked at her hand for a moment and then back at him. He smiled at her. She felt that she could trust him and without really thinking, she placed her hand in hers. His smile grew wider and he kissed her hand gently. At that very moment, all of Sakura's common sense and reason flew right out the window.

"Tell me what your heart desires, Cinderella." The Prince said as he led her in a slow romantic waltz. "Tell me what you seek. I can give you anything in the world that you want."

Sakura didn't even pause to think about it. "I would like it very much if we could stay together, just like this. I want to have you. Is that…is that okay?"

He nodded. "If that is your wish, stay here until midnight. Then you and I will be together always."

The idea of being here forever sounded wonderful to her and she nodded. Then, she opened her mouth to speak before closing it and shaking her head.

"What is it?" The Prince inquired.

"I was wondering…" Sakura paused. "Well…just who ARE you?"

He smiled at her again and Sakura suddenly noticed the fangs in his mouth and the mark on his face, beneath his right eye, which his mask didn't completely hide. She'd seen that mark before…. but where?

"I'm your prince." He said in a matter of fact tone, as though she should already know. "The Prince that lives in your secret dreams. The ones you never tell anyone about because you don't want to admit it publicly. But your heart knows what you want. This is a place were your secret dreams can all come true."

Sakura was confused for a moment before she remembered who she'd been dreaming about lately. Her eyes grew wide and her mouth nearly dropped open.

"Impossible." She murmured as the Prince led her out to the gardens, stopping on a bridge over a moonlit lake, which reflected the starry sky.

He turned to her and smiled and then she noticed the rich emerald color of his eyes.

The pieces fell into place more quickly now, and Sakura was scared by what her own heart was telling her.

The Prince smiled at her again before he carefully removed his mask.

Sakura gasped, covering her mouth with her hands.

Eiji's face stared back at her, but it wasn't his human one. It was his Ashu face. She almost drew back in horror because it still scared her a little, but she could see the humanity in his eyes. Eiji wasn't a monster. He never had been.

Gingerly, she reached out and caressed his face, stroking the mark beneath his cheek. Eiji closed his eyes and touched her hand gently. "Sakura"…he murmured softly and in the back of her mind, she dimly wondered when he had learned of her name.

"Eiji" She murmured back as he touched her hand, finally acknowledging the feeling in her heart as love. "I love you…" Her whisper was soft and barely audible.

"I know." He murmured as he pulled her close to him, his facial features slowly changing to reveal his human face.

Without hesitating or thinking, Sakura kissed him deeply. The time, the world, everything melted away in the face of her emotions. This felt so right!

Suddenly the clock struck midnight and Sakura dimly wondered what happened next.

Eiji smiled against her lips.

"You're mine forever now, Sakura." He murmured.

The next morning, Satoru came into the salon to find Sakura collapsed on the floor, the slipper still on her foot.

Despite all efforts, she wouldn't wake up, except to mumble a single word…a name.

"Eiji…"