A human figure ran across the room in complete silence. Black against the blinding lightning that had struck the nearby church for a second, it dissolved into the night the next without making any sound. Any audible in spite of the roaring storm overhead anyway, but the blond soldier was wide awake, her muscles tensed and ready for anything as her senses expanded in the dark. There had been a sound that had nothing to do with the unruly weather, Haruka believed. It had woken her up with a start and there didn't seem to be anything around that might have caused it.
Everyone had plans for that weekend, so she was home alone. Setsuna was at a hotel, attending a fashion design convention, Hotaru was sleeping over at Chibi-Usa's house and Michiru was touring the island of Hokkaido, many miles away... yet the F-1 racer's thoughts lingered in her aqua-haired partner.
"Michiru?" Haruka whispered hopefully into the darkness of their bedroom, emerald green eyes squinting in an attempt to make out the shapes that surrounded her. The furniture seemed distorted and alien in the stroke of midnight. The church's bell started to toll, making the whole scene appear like something out of a horror movie. The guardian of Uranus was no coward and a bit old to be worrying about a noise in the dark, but having the house to herself after sharing a bed for so long had her feeling out of sorts.
Outside, the wind roared wild and loud, to the point where you couldn't even hear the crashing waves at the beach, just a couple of dozen yards away. Her element was angry, it was calling to her, but there was a huge emptiness in the place where she usually felt bad omens. Nothing was coming, not this time. Then why was the wind so persistent? Was someone she loved in danger? No. She would have felt that, Haruka knew. Her connection to her loved ones was too strong, having it severed would have been like losing her sight all of a sudden.
Another lightning and still no answer. The blond woman sitting on her American style futon swung her feet out of bed and felt her way around her room in the dark until her body was warmly clad in a blue flannel robe. Maybe a cup of white tea, the one with rose petals that her beloved mermaid adored, would calm her excited senses and lull her back to sleep.
A soft explosion-like sound came from the first story. It was a sound Haruka knew well, but it still startled her. The tall woman's jaw set in frustration and resolution. She was a soldier. A soldier who had faced terrible enemies and now was scared of a power out, because that was the sound she had just heard. The one made by the device on the wall behind the front door as it tried to restore the house's power and failed for the second time that night.
Now there was no point in going downstairs to have a cup of tea. Setsuna had insisted they replaced their old appliances with state of the art technology and, of course, that meant that everything from the oven to the stove and even the kettle were all electric. The older woman should have listened to her when she had suggested they got a generator too, considering that now a simple shortcut could render their kitchen useless for days.
With a gruffy sigh, Haruka picked up her cellphone and dialed the numbers without even looking. It rang a couple of times before a familiar voice sounded at the other end of the line.
"Haruka?" A sleepy Michiru asked more perplexed than worried. If there had been any danger, she would have sensed it and the tour would have been cancelled, but neither she nor any of the other senshi had felt anything unusual in months to justify putting her dream on hold anymore. "Is everything alright?" Her delicate voice denoted a small frown in her lovely features. Haruka knew her lover so well she could tell even miles apart. "What's that sound?" She asked as another thunder hit the church's lightning rod. There was the tiniest splash of worry in the musician's voice, which indicated she had finally found the clock in her night table.
"It's just a thunder." Haruka informed managing to sound completely in control of the situation. After all, it was just a little storm, no matter how loud it got. "The power went out. I told Setsuna we should have gotten a generator as well." The blond complained to the only person who wouldn't hang up on her if she called in the middle of the night without a good reason. In a cozy little hotel in Hokkaido, Michiru smiled to herself, finding the idea that Haruka might be scared of being home alone a little too amusing. Her lover's voice hadn't betrayed her, but the violinist knew Haruka so well she, too, could easily predict her.
"If you wanted to rub it in her face, I'm afraid you dialed the wrong number, love." Michiru teased, holding back a giggle. Her lover chuckled softly in the dark, now standing in front of the window, looking at the sea. It was black against black but she could almost make out the waves crashing violently on the shore, not too far from the house. "No, I... ah... I wanted to talk to you." The blond admitted in a more serious manner. "Is this the payback for that time I woke you up to watch the sunrise at the beach five years ago?" Michiru asked, still a playful little smile in her pouty lips.
"No." Haruka quickly replied. "What are you talking about? I can't believe you still remember that." She protested in a slightly outraged tone, though the racer herself remembered the night in question very vividly and had to make an effort to refrain a smile that would otherwise have carried in her voice. Her green eyes shone with the sweet memories of that dawn at the beach. "Well, it is you who keeps promising to take revenge." Michiru said as innocently as only she could pretend to be. Her heart warmed up at the sound of that husky voice she loved more than anything in the world. It made her feel perfectly at peace when she had gone to bed feeling homesick. The same was true for her better half, who still watched the sea and wind rage wildly outside their home.
"The wind is howling wildly outside." The racer went right back to business. "The sea waves look angry and are probably taller than me right now. They both look so violent and angry..." Haruka did sound concerned this time and she stepped away from the window to ease the bad feeling that, ironically, not having the actual bad feeling that always came with that weather was causing her. "I feel nothing out of the ordinary, Ruka. It's probably just this awful weather." Michiru reassured her across the line. "There too?" "Yes. The snowstorm over here made it impossible for me to reach my hotel after the concert. I had to stay at a small hot springs motel near the road." She explained. "You probably shouldn't look into it too much." The aqua-haired woman begged in her sensual little voice.
"Yeah, you're probably right..." Haruka had started to say but then sighed, like there was more she wanted to say in defense of her theory. "...it just makes me uneasy to see them acting out like this and feel... nothing." The blond tried to explain in words, but it was impossible to translate such an ominous feeling into mere sounds. "The wind used to call to me all the time, Michiru. Why have they stopped talking to us all of the sudden? I could hear the calmest breeze whispering to me during springtime and now... it's like I'm suddenly blind." The F1 racer's voice sounded grim and worried. "I don't like blind." She said with poorly contained anger and frustration.
"I know, love. I don't like it anymore than you do, but it's probably a good thing, nothing to worry about. Earth is safe at last. My mirror is only reflecting my face for a change. No one else is picking up any threats. We're finally living in a time of peace..." The violinist kept talking in her soft, soothing voice as she made her way back to bed. "After everything we've been through we deserve this break. We promised to make the most of this break, Ruka." Michiru said softly yet firmly and pulled the covers up to her chin. "Why don't we go back to bed now and try to get some rest? I'll see you tomorrow night and then you can worry about the sea going wild on you." She teased in a sensual whisper that put a smile in the blonde's face despite her concern.
Another thunder roared fiercely before Haruka could reply with a teasing phrase of her own. It hit a random spot in the sand right outside the house, completely ignoring the lightning rod on the nearby church's roof. Haruka turned around, startled by the noise and the rising feeling that something was not right that had crept into her soul. "Holy...! Did you hear that, Michiru?" A red-hot puddle of melted glass shone in the beach like a beacon in the dark. Her green eyes immediately locked on it and, suddenly, it was the only thing the blond senshi could think about. "Was that another thunder?" The musician asked more shocked than concerned. "Yeah." The taller senshi replied, adrenaline pumping wildly through her system as she ran downstairs in the dark.
Haruka opened the front door and stepped into the crazy weather. "It hit right outside our bedroom window. Left a blazing hot puddle of melted sand in the beach... it's insane!" The racer exclaimed into her cellphone, kneeling besides the liquified quartz. "No, it's not insane. It's fulgurite. That's what happens when lightning hits sand." Michiru replied sleepily. "With a lightening rod one hundred yards away?" Haruka ironized. Another thunder roared nearby. Its sound was deafening, even through the line. Michiru sat on her hotel bed, deep blue eyes wide open. "Haruka, are you outside?" It was a stupid question, as the ambient noise made it pretty clear to her by now. "Please go back inside before you catch a cold." She ordered starting to sound upset. Why couldn't her lover just take it easy? "You need to be in your best shape for the National Cup next week and I won't nurse you back to health if you get sick for being this reckless, do you hear me?" Nothing. Only the sound of the storm came through the line. "Haruka?" The musician demanded desperately, fearing the worse.
For the longest moment, Michiru was kept in suspense, her heart pounding insanely inside her chest and a thousand worries racing through her mind before her partner finally spoke. "Oh my God, Michiru. You have to come home immediately." A horror stricken Haruka said over the phone before the line went dead.