March 4th, 1994…
It's true that Nikko missed Kyōto, and that she'd been living in the new apartment for less than a month, but it was a place she and her siblings could honestly call their own. Their parents had not approved most of the changes they'd wanted to make when they woke up the morning of their sixteenth birthday with memories of another lifetime, so they'd done what they could at the time, but now they had what basically amounted to free reign. The airy atmosphere – with light colors, glass tables and silver lamps – had been just what the triplets had wanted.
She moves quietly around the apartment as she readies to leave, since Hikari and Kishi were still asleep. A grin on her face (from sheer pride in her own home), Nikko hoists her bag to her shoulder and leaves early for her college classes. Belatedly, the young woman checks her bag to make sure all the books she'd need that day were there, as well as the science fair project that had gotten her into Tōkyō Tech. Her chemistry professor had asked her to bring it in when he found out that she'd been the one to make it. Having all books and devices accounted for, she takes the steps lightly down to the first floor. Pushing the lobby doors open into the cool spring air, she takes a deep breath before taking off for Tōkyō Tech at an easy pace.
The foot traffic was still pretty light this early, having only junior high and high school students still walking to school at this hour, which allowed Nikko to take her time in walking to school.
"I'M LATE!I'MLATE!I'MLATE!I'MLATE!I'MLATE!I'M – " WHAM!
Completely blind-sided, Nikko crashes to the ground with a younger, pig-tailed girl on top of her, who pauses only a moment to see who she'd crashed into and gather up her books before she takes off running again, continuing her screaming chant of "I'm late!" Paranoid and the hair on the back of her neck rising on end, Nikko watched the girl as she gathered her own books back together. Sighing as she noticed her photosynthesis device missing and a broach that was definitely not hers (pink and moons being forbidden in the house since they woke up with their memories of the Silver Millennium) amidst the books, she tears off after the girl, hoping to catch up with her before she lost her sight line.
Thankfully for Nikko, the trail of scattered books and papers was easy to follow and she managed to catch up with the girl as she ran into another person, a young man, though this one seemed to be expecting – even welcoming – it. Nikko slows her pace to an easy jog as she approaches the pair, beginning to wonder what the girl had been late for if she could pause this long to talk with a guy. The man notices her first, looking away from the girl, and his gaze makes Nikko falter a moment, her heart skipping a beat. It suddenly makes sense, and she notices the power humming from the broach and why she'd gotten the tingling feeling when the girl had crashed into her. Taking a breath, Nikko steels herself and smiles; though she suspects it comes off as slightly shy.
"Excuse me for interrupting," Nikko says, holding out the broach to the girl, "but I think the young woman has something of mine and I believe this belongs to her." The girl gasps and snatches it quickly from Nikko's hand, affixing it to the front of her uniform. When Nikko didn't turn around and leave, the girl looks confused.
"Usa-ko, you might want to check your bag for anything that might belong to her," the man gently reminds her. Nikko could barely hide her wince at the endearment the man used. The girl looks slightly shamefaced as she rummages through her bag and finds Nikko's precious device.
Nikko takes a moment to check it over before allowing herself her own sigh of relief. She smiles and checks her watch. "Thank you. If you'll excuse me, I need to get to class," Nikko says calmly as she turns around and starts back the way she came. As she'd expected, the girl's shriek of "I'm late!" resumes and Nikko allows herself a small devious grin. Her small gloating session was cut short by realizing that the tingling in the back of her brain hadn't stopped. Idly, she looks behind her to find the man following her. She turns her attention quickly back to the sidewalk in front of her since the walkways were getting steadily more crowded, but also because her heart kept jumping at the sight of the man she was pretty sure…
She shakes her head, willing the thought away. 'He still loves the Moon Princess… Serenity did her job on Fate well…' Nikko thinks, ignoring the stabbing pain she feels from the resigned thought.
She tries to ignore the feeling that he was still following her as well, but she couldn't shake that one away as easily since periodic glances backwards proved that, indeed, he still is following her. The why of that question, which tormented Nikko almost the entire time, is answered when he greets one of the Tōkyō Tech professors and starts discussing a class's lecture. Nikko breathes, the tingling feeling subsiding as she ducks into the chemistry building, and makes her way to the chemistry lecture room.
'This is going to be a long year…' Nikko thinks as she takes a seat in the middle of the room and pulls out her photosynthesis device to once more check that all the connections were working. She lets her mind blank out as she does so, trusting the buried memories from her life as Princess Aurora to make sure it was in working order.
It'd had been almost two years since she'd woken up on her birthday with a whole life's worth of memories revealed, and those two years had been packed with events that made the new knowledge difficult to conceal from Mr. and Mrs. Seino. Nikko, Hikari and Kishi still considered their parents as such, but the bond they'd already had as triplets was twice-fold now that they all remembered their past lives and had a consular in their cat, Apollo. Apollo had gone off to investigate when they arrived in Tōkyō, citing a large amount of lunar energy concentrated in the area, and had promised to be back before a week was out.
Nikko is brought out of her thoughts by the tingling sensation returning full force, making her look up from her device to see the man from earlier walking in with the Chemistry professor, Tanaka-sensei. She bites the inside of her cheek and turns her attention back to the photosynthesis device only to hear her name called.
"Seino-san, is that the device we discussed?" the professor asks loudly as more students start filtering in.
"Hai, sensei, it is," Nikko responds quickly, getting up and bringing the surprisingly small device with her. The man didn't take a seat as Nikko approaches, making her heart race from anxiety. When she does look at the man's face, she sees him trying to place her in his memory. She closes her eyes and focuses instead on the professor, ignoring the man as best she could, but that was made next to impossible by the professor himself.
"Seino-san, this is Chiba-san, a local third-year student. Chiba-san, this is Seino-san, a first-year student from Kyōto. She's the prodigy that I was telling you about last week," Professor Tanaka states in introduction, holding his hand out expectantly to Nikko for the device. "She fashioned the prototype of this ingenious device a year ago for a high school science project. What was it called? A photosynthesizer?"
Only acknowledging Chiba with a nod before she returns her full attention to Tanaka, Nikko answers, "Yes, sensei, photosynthesizer." She was trying very hard not to blush from the compliment but the close proximity of Chiba was making that very difficult to manage. "All it needs is some hydrogen monoxide poured into the main chamber and sunlight, and it'll start making the diatomic oxygen and glucose. It pulls in the carbon dioxide from the air around it through the intake valve on the top, next to the solar panel, and with the hydrogen monoxide in the main container. The process starts when enough sunlight has hit the solar panel, creating the diatomic oxygen, which comes out through the valve on the front, and the twelve molarity aqueous glucose solution which is deposited in the container on the port side." Explaining the workings of the photosynthesizer gives Nikko something to distract herself. Dropping into chemistry talk, her mind fills up with equations and memories of the experiments she'd done to get the numbers she'd spouted.
"Impressive, Seino-san," Chiba comments, causing Nikko's blush to return full force.
"It was really nothing… It wasn't even what I was trying to make…" Nikko defers quietly, her face fit to match her dyed-red hair.
"Purposefully made or not, Seino-san, this is the work of genius. Could I convince you to let me borrow this for some of my other lectures?" Tanaka asks.
Nikko allows that she could be convinced before begging pardon to take her seat, hoping to get away from Chiba. Her hopes are dashed as he follows her and takes the seat next to her. To her everlasting despair, he also had taken the lab that immediately followed the lecture on Monday and positioned himself to be her partner for the term.
"Are you trying to get away from me?" Chiba asks, noticing the way she'd shy away from him, turn bright red, or look exasperated. It was all Nikko could do to bite back the vehement 'Yes!' that was her immediate reaction.
"I might be more comfortable with it if I knew why you were going to such lengths to be around me," Nikko responds, hoping the acid didn't surface in her tone too much.
"Well… You seem like a reasonably intelligent young woman, since Tanaka-sensei rarely calls anyone's work inspired, let alone 'genius'. You're new and I'd like to get to know you," Chiba answers, causing Nikko to bite the inside of her cheek again. 'If he thought all that why couldn't he – No… Serenity messed with Fate itself… Unless someone tries to change it, he won't even imagine wanting anyone other than the Moon Princess…' Nikko chides herself silently, knowing she shouldn't hate him for what the Moon Queen had done.
"I'm sorry, what was that?" Nikko asks, having missed Chiba's last question in the depth of her thoughts.
"I said my name is Mamoru. What's yours?" Chiba repeats patiently.
"Nichiko… My name is Nichiko," Nikko responds, struggling to suppress her stammer and slight blush.
"A pleasure to meet you Seino Nichiko. Would you happen to have plans for after class? I happen to know of a café that needs some patronage," Chiba Mamoru offers, sending Nikko's heart into more flutters and skips.
"I really shouldn't. My homework –" Nikko says, trying to avoid telling him that she had nothing better planned than curling up with a book at home.
"Was done by the time class ended. I watched you do it," Mamoru retorts with a grin. Nikko hastily bites down on a curse and smiles, nodding her assent.
'This is going to be a very long year…' Nikko thinks, hoping she could find some way to get her resolve up.
Hikari didn't need the innate telepathy that the triplets shared to know that Nikko was not happy, very tense, and shades of emotions she'd only felt in memories. That was the first hint that something was more than a little amiss in Tōkyō, but then Apollo returned with his scouting report. All the Moon Kingdom's court was awake and fighting, and had won several major battles within the last two years. However, while they'd unlocked their senshi abilities out of necessity, they'd done nothing to recover their memories.
The Guardian of Gemini had smirked slightly when Apollo had informed both Kishi and herself about their lack of memories. 'Probably because the Moon Wench they worship as Queen Serenity did a find botch job on their memories,' she allows herself to think with venom.
Hikari knew, though, that there were only two people in the Moon's court that could have her sister in fits of anxiety and biting her tongue… And she doubted that she'd be in contact with the Moon Princess for this long without a violent thought even crossing the back of her mind.
Hikari had no trouble finding the café where Nikko and (presumably) the reincarnation of Endymion are. She observes them quietly from a shadowed corner before taking a seat at the table on the other side of the divider. She orders something to drink while listening in on the conversation, gleaning that Endymion's name in this life is Chiba Mamoru and that he was a third-year student at Nikko's school. Hikari allows herself a wince and the predicament and knows exactly how Nikko must be feeling – tight, trying not to feel the way she had, trying not to remember the pain he caused. Merely thinking about it makes Hikari furious.
Hikari couldn't allow herself the luxury of high emotions, though, so she tamps down her feelings and listened as calmly as she could while Nikko got more and more tense from not being able to escape. After dealing with the check and grabbing a piece of paper, Hikari scribbles a hasty note and palms it into the cuff of her sleeve and gets up to make her presence known to her sister and the cause of her irritation.
"There you are Nikko-ane! I was expecting you home an hour ago!" Hikari calls from the café entrance and makes her way to her sister's table. Hikari would've had to be blind to not see the look of relief on her sister's face.
"I'm sorry, Hikari-imōto… I got hijacked by a classmate," Nikko responds with feigned apology. "Hikari-imōto, this is Chiba Mamoru. I met him in my chemistry class this morning. Chiba-san, this is my twin sister, Seino Hikari," Nikko says, standing up. Chiba stands as well and offers his hand to Hikari. She takes it with a feigned smile, slipping the note she'd written into his palm.
"Sorry to break up this little outing, but Kishi's expecting us," Hikari states as she releases his hand as quickly as was polite, turning to Nikko and ushering her towards the door.
"You're right. Sorry, Chiba-san. I'll see you in class," Nikko responds, taking her exit as it was offered. Hikari follows her and turns to look back at the door. She watches as he reads the note and meets his gaze when he looks up sharply. Hikari holds herself tall, her eyes sparking with the written threat.
We know who you are, Endymion. You've caused enough harm to Princess Aurora. Leave her alone or you answer to me.
~Gemini
Seeing at least recognition that she meant what she'd written, Hikari turns and follows Nikko down the stairs.
Disclaimer: I do not, as I've long maintained, own Sailormoon, nor the premis for any of the characters you recognize from Takeuchi-sama's wonderful story. I do own Queen Dawn Helios, King Solaris Suisei-Helios, King Twilight Helios-Tsukiou, Princess Aurora Helios/Nichiko "Nikko" Seino, Princess Estella Helios/Hikari Seino, Prince Orion Helios/Kishi Seino, all Zodiac senshi that may or may not appear (though no claims upon anyone else's interpretations), the premise of the Sun Kingdom and why everything went to the proverbial shitter at the end of the Silver Millennium (which I also do not own).
Read, Review and Enjoy the story!
~Glimmer