Disclaimer: Tokyo Mew Mew isn't mine. Neither is broccoli. Helleperyoxyln doesn't really exist in trees at all, it's my made up drug which means it's still MINE. As is Jessika Harcesis, Eustachia and the plot of this story.

Note: Nyaaaaaaah… I've been so tired these days. Updating Harcesis takes a lot of work sometimes. Especially when you have to think up plots for the next five or so chapters! I had chapter 12 nicely plotted until my old iPod shuffle screwed over, taking the only existing manuscript with it, a story you are all aware… I remember most of the ideas but not how I worded them…

Nonetheless, I have updated this and it is a jolly good update in my opinion. Thanks for your feedback, peeps.

Lyrics by Peter Gabriel.

Chapter 1o – Ceasefire

It was only one hour ago
It was all so different then,
Nothing yet has really sunk in
Looks like it always did.

In the brief moments of freefall as he descended the sky towards the solid ground, Kish felt a strange warmth flood over him. Without hesitation, he surrendered to the feeling and let it take control of his body. It's better than the alternative.

Albeit he could not fully physically function, his mind was still active, though it was racing through thoughts of fear and reminiscences memoirs he would rather forget.

'Kisshu…' Upon hearing a whisper of his name amongst the silence he was sure was associated with death, his eyes snapped open. The fear of awakening to see the ground gaining on him was eliminated by this entity that was present with him all of a sudden.

He suddenly stopped falling. His posture shifted and his feet softly touched the ground. In the few seconds this event occurred, the room became his dwellings in Madrona, the warm, bittersweet memory of the home he once had before their race had to move underground because of the destructive weather conditions.

A thought crossed his mind, How is this still here? I saw it being destroyed by the Enolcyc with my own eyes… the disaster spread across the entire village!

Then, the idea bloomed in his mind. It wasn't real. It was a memory from his past. A representation of the life he once had.

But why did it feel so real? The feelings… The recollections… The scent and the sight? The entire ordeal was forcing him into a corner of perplexity.

A light, golden aura surrounded the figure – the entity from before – as she appeared and the confusion was gone.

Her hair was as green as emeralds and her eyes were a deep amber, just as his were. A smile played on thin, pink lips which lit her entire face. Her name came back to him in a flurry of memories, some of which he was positive didn't belong to him at all.

'Ka…' His mouth struggled to form the words, 'Ka…tay…ah…' Kataya. Her name is Kataya. Despite the circumstances, he smiled at the familiarity of the name.

She reached out to touch his face, just as he willed. He knew that upon contact, he would know everything about her. It wasn't a sixth sense or whatnot, it was just pure instinct. He knew that he needed to know everything about her.

After brief exposure from her touch, from fingertips as cold as ice, her aura burned far brighter for a second before she moved back into the middle of the room. She looked up, gave him another smile…

And then she was gone, replaced by the darkness he so desperately wished to escape. Once again, he was freefalling.

Another name played on his lips. 'Ichigo…'

But he already knew it was too late. The name faded to black, as did his hope. All sound was neutralised in a single instant.

Until…

The soft whisper of a melody fell upon him. The source was unknown.

"Did I dream this belief?
Or did I believe this dream?
Now I will find relief…
I grieve."

Then the feeling stopped as did the song. He was no longer falling. Wispy tendrils; materialisations of colour – arms, perhaps – wrapped around him and he was ascending. Ascending to the sky. It was all so different from the feeling of freefall…

The next thing he noticed was the noise. It crashed down on him and once more, his ears tingled from the super-massive sound – it was the opposite of the beautiful melody and silence he had witnessed beforehand. A shudder passed through him and he forced himself to open his eyes and face the outside world once more.

Shock flooded through him as his ashen amber irises met a pair of stunning azure eyes. The lenient form of Eustachia was present all around him and he gave in to her warmth.

'Kisshu-Kisshu, you should not be here…' She trailed off with a serious look on her face. They stopped ascending and a moment later, her feet touched solid ground.

Through the trauma, the events did not come to his waking mind and he was confused. Then, his subconscious gave into him and his memories were restored to his brain.

Desperation. Darkness. Chase. Enclosing. Code. Incorrect. Denied. Frustration. Correct. Access. Materialisation. Near. Hull. Breach. Closer. Anger. Destroyed. Transport. Earth. Solid. Ground. Fight…

Fall.

He was on the brink of voicing a question that arose to his mind when his train of thought and moment was interrupted by two very familiar comrades of his. Pai and Tart veered closer and he turned, never feeling as relieved to see them as he did now. Both aliens looked concerned, the younger more so than the elder.

'Kish!' Tart yelled with his eyes wide as they approached. He raced over to him and was embraced all of a sudden by the mass of the small boy. His own eyes widened, then, as the shock faded, he let a small smile cross over his features and returned the gesture of affection.

When they parted, Pai acknowledged his presence with a curt nod. A gesticulation of which, Kish knew, was as affectionate as the elder alien would get. He felt honoured at Pai's intimation and nodded back. He then turned his attention back at the matter at hand, dismissing his thoughts.

Pai asked him the question that was on all three uninformed alien's minds, 'What are you doing here, Kisshu and what happened?' Once again, his answer was interrupted.

This time, it was from someone unexpected.

'Hey! Kisshu! What's all this about?' Taruto and Eustachia parted to reveal -

'Ichigo!' Kish's eyes widened with a new type of shock. He regained himself quickly after seeing her expression.

Pai's face hardened, 'What are you doing here, human scum?'

Ichigo looked taken aback. Her face was then distorted into a look of pure and unadulterated hatred and ire. 'I'm trying to figure out why your usually wasted plans were even more useless this time over.' She scowled, 'And who's this?' She pointed at Eustachia, who looked at her with a serene expression.

'I am Eustachia, the healer,' the alien female replied with ease. 'I assume, from the dialogue that has elapsed, that you are Momomiya Ichigo, also known as the leader of Tokyo Mew Mew and our sworn enemy.'

The Iriomote merged teenager was impressed and slightly knocked for six by the alien's knowledge and use of wording. All she could manage to retort back was a reflex action of asking, 'Yeah, what of it?'

Eustachia went on, answering her question in the process, '– I, however, have an insufficient part in the plans of such a military operation. This means I have no reason to neither dislike you nor act in any way uncourteous unless the lives of my patients are placed at risk, such as Master Kisshu here. So please, do not idly put aside this truce.'

Without another word to anyone else or so much as a brief farewell, she gracefully withdrew a device from her pocket – in the form of a basic remote control with a single button interface – and pressed down on the small mechanism, her hands still softly in contact with Kisshu. He was beamed aboard Prometheus without hesitation, leaving Ichigo, Pai and Tart to wake in his dust.

Eustachia and Kish arrived in the confines of the infirmary barely a moment later when the beaming technology triggered by the remote control began operations by the nanosecond and enabled their arrival in such short time.

At first, Kish was worried Eustachia would go back for Tart and Pai straight away and he knew that when she did there would be an uproar despite the relieved and placid behaviour generated by the elder alien. Pai was strict in his teachings and even stricter in his punishment, so Kish expected a heavy berating.

However, she made no move to neither demand an explanation herself nor bring aboard the two others. He was extremely relieved and yet knew that the consequences were not yet prevented and would surely still be standing nonetheless.

For the moment he was safe and he decided that the moment was good enough to insist an explanation at Eustachia's enhanced powers – which could be activated and channelled even when theirs were disabled – and to answer any questions she might have involving the events prior to their arrival back to the ship.

The object of his attention was currently across the room, setting up various medical supplies to monitor his health. He grimaced, realising that a gruelling hour's process of adjustments and tests was punishment enough for his stepping out of line.

As Eustachia begun the procedure, the talk that they had been anticipating began. It started with a single: 'Tell me what happened.'

This enquiry was made by the female alien, who cut to the chase long before Kish was ready to build up his own queries. He frowned once more, just as she stuck an obnoxious looking sedative into his arm, obviously trying to calm him.

And so he began to fill her in with every detail of his turn of events, beginning with his awakening and moving on slowly to the threatening nature of the simulation room as well as his experiences there.

He then described the black tidal wave of chaos and death chasing him across the corridors and into the hull of the ship.

After briefly skimming over his arson attempt – of which he explained quite embarrassed at his actions – involving the power supply and how it disabled teleportation following his dematerialisation on Earth, Kish managed to fit in about the Chimera Anima yet was still uncomfortable to mention his state of mind at the time as well as the unknown power that had flooded through him as it had in the infirmary.

He drew an extremely large breath after finishing. Before Eustachia could open her mouth and continue to interrogate him, he asked her a question of his own after summing up the courage to do so in his lengthy explanation.

'How?'

She looked up at him, confused. 'How, what?'

Kish was not sure whether or not she was stalling or if she really had no clue of what he was on about.

He smirked, releasing a brief chuckle before saying; 'You know what. How were you able to bypass the barrier of our abilities and access them without the ship's help? Not even Pai knows how to successfully achieve that!'

Eustachia sighed and in that moment, Kish felt a chill pass through him. He was suddenly regretting being so forceful towards the fragile attendant.

He looked at her apologetically, concern arising to his usually mischievous and demanding personality, 'Sorry. I shouldn't have asked you such a–'

'–personal question?' She interrupted, finishing his sentence for him. He nodded. 'No, no it's alright. I know I've never really been open about my past, but I guess this is a situation I cannot weed myself out of.'

She smiled at him, shutting her eyes for an evanescent second. Yet he still saw the hurt that passed through him and knew that the subject was taboo in previous conversations.

However, she gave him safe passage in the story she was about to confide him in, 'It was five years ago. Winter, five years ago. Of course, Lithia's climates never really shift into warmth anymore, do they?'

Kish shot her a sad half-smile of his own. The outrageous weather conditions on Madrona that they had to survive underground through were enough to darken anybodies day. This built up his envy for the lives that humans had – a lush, beautiful planet and they did nothing but exhaust all of the Earth's resources.

Eustachia continued, 'I was young then. You would have only been ten summers old, would you not?' Without giving time for pause and for him to even manage a nod, she went on with the tale, 'There were rumours that a new borne virus had been spread, the pathogen effecting the female population only. As you most likely know, there were a lot of rumours of plague spread back then. It is a period of time we are not very proud of. Nonetheless, it was only until women began to die from a mysterious source that they started to work on a cure.

'A month or so later, after many more deaths being blamed on the lack of resources, the CelestGuild began to publicly voice their finding of a vaccination. Women were being bought in to be examined and given a free dose of the drug they called Ceasefire. A name bought upon the times of peace between Guilds and villages. It was to promote hope and fulfilment for all womankin.

'I was taken in. Weeks after, nothing happened. No sign of the viral strands, nothing. I was in full working order and utilising my good feeling to its full potential.'

She paused right then, taking a couple of deep breaths and placing an odd-looking medical thermostat in his mouth before continuing, 'Then I was approached by the CelestGuild once more, saying they had found something unusual in the blood sample I had supplied them with. They asked me an all round important question.'

Eustachia removed the thermostat after a few minutes. '"Will you dedicate yourself to the art of CelestGuild to better help womankin?" I was torn between my duties and my desire to help them. I eventually agreed after a lot of coaxing. The information they supplied me with was enormously surprising. Apparently my blood was able to adapt to high levels of Helleperyoxyln which just so happened to be the main ingredient in the Ceasefire concoction and the accelerate drug given to our people to build up our extraordinary mind and physical powers.'

'They began running test after test and injecting me with many doses of the drug, all at different levels of strength and concentration or dilution. The results were marvellous. However, as time passed by, the tests grew more harsh and torturous. The Helleperyoxyln doses were so frequent that my body began to get used to the intake and adaptation of the drug.'

She took another long, deep breath. 'Soon enough, I was addicted to it. When they found this out, they did more tests, more injections and more exercises to utilise my potential.'

'I never thought that the CelestGuild, the best leaders of our own race, could be so cruel. They left me for days, weeks without the drug. It was torture in its simplest form. I could have called it quits anytime and I should have done but I never realised how out of hand this would get. The thought of leaving never occurred to me because if I left, I wouldn't be able to cope without the drug and as you know, it only occurs in the rarest of plants – the Cherry Blossom.'

'I'm sure you can put two and two together at my volunteering of this mission. My part is not only to provide my abilities as a healer and keep you silly boys out of trouble, but it is also to recover samples of the drug Helleperyoxyln in the Tokyo Cherry Blossoms for further analyses. In return, my supplies are endless.'

She stopped speaking. Kish took the moment to retort with his own question, 'Does that mean that Helleh-pery-pro-oxy-proxy-lyn or whatever the drug is called is the reason why you can access your large-scale abilities without use of a machine?'

He received a curt nod from the nurse, who seemed to be dwelling in an eternity of memories and regrets, as told from the look on her face. He sighed, reaching out to her in his mind.

Before he could muster up the courage to comfort her, her soft voice broke through his reverie, beckoning another question, 'How were you able to control the Chimera Anima?'

His amber eyes darkened at the question and he explained about the unknown power source that let him tap into its awesome potential energy and help him prevent the large-scale attack.

She listened intensively. Upon his finishing, she began into a speculation straight away. 'This power source could be the answer to all of our problems.'

He frowned, 'What do you mean?'

'Well, in a sense, all of your problems... It seems to me that the full blown hallucinations you have had of the black tidal wave and shadows creeping upon you as well as inability of controlling your motor functions such as walking as well as the added toxin in your blood are all caused by the same thing. This power source.'

Kish's eyes widened. He had never seen the events in the same light before as he did right then. It all came together in a mind-shattering instant. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.

Of course. Of course.

It seemed so right. How could he have not had thought of it before?

The power source is the virus.

He almost doubled over from the sudden gut feeling in his stomach. The instinct was one he had not felt for a long while.

Pure and unaltered dread.

His eyes were wide with terror. He felt the strength ebbing out of him slowly.

'I-it-it's here.' Eustachia's warm hands came to his shoulders and in the heat of the moment they were freezing cold. He jerked away, racing across the room and away from the harmless nurse.

'What's here? Kisshu-Kisshu. It's me. It's Eustachia. Tell me…' She walked up to him. He took another step back. And another until he felt his back lean against the cold, steel wall. He slid down it and into a foetal position, eyes still wide and amber. 'What. Is Here.'

He looked up at her, as if seeing her for the first time.

'Who… Who is she?'

'What is she doing here?'

'Is she a monster?'

'She IS a monster!'

'She's trying to hurt me!'

'Please, stop this!'

'Anyone, please!'

'THE SHADOW! YOU'RE THE SHADOW! STAY AWAY FROM MEEEEEE!' His hands moved up to cover his ears as he screamed and screamed, trying to fight the migraine and pain that flooded through his senses.

He directed all his anger and rage into one source. The wide-eyed nurse realised this a second later and still had time to make her move, of which she did with utmost precision.

Time slowed.

Kisshu looked up at Eustachia with round, amber eyes.

She stared straight back at him, equally as stunned with her beautiful blue irises.

And then… his irises changed. Amber. Crimson. Amber. Crimson. Which one were they really? It was unknown to him in this moment.

He lashed out with his mind in a single instant.

TARGET ELIMINATED.

Upon hearing the reassuring voice in his mind, not even once doubting its motive, the noise stopped and the silence was a refuge, as was the black. It seemed the one thing he had wanted to escape was now his safe haven. He let it take him.

As he slipped into unconsciousness, he didn't see the yellow-orange barrier erected around a figure standing before him in black and white nurse's attire.

Eustachia lowered the shield, eyes heavy with sorrow.

'Kisshu-Kisshu.' She knelt down to touch the face of the unmoving and unconscious figure.

'What have they done to you?' She reached out and brushed his cheek with her fingertips before injecting him with another round of sedative, which should enable his sleep to last at least half of a day.

And then, she began the forever gruelling task of repairing the broken locator beacon in the Teleportation Room.

Ichigo made her way back towards the place where her friends were congregating after the attack. Seeing that they were all adorned with their usual attire instead of that of their Mew outfits, Ichigo followed suit quickly.

Her Mew Ichigo battle-suit was replaced swiftly with a cute, casual design. On her feet, she wore a pair of hot pink sneakers with loosely crafted socks overlaying the tops of them. Her slender figure was clad in a pair of black short-shorts and she wore a pink, sleeveless top with her red cat bell around her neck and hot pink and black ribbons in her hair.

The Mew leader was surprised at the level of respect the two aliens had for her after the healer, Eustachia and Kish had left. In return for saving them, Ichigo was able to extract information about the event that occurred.

However, speculation reigned over both parties as the actual cause of the peculiar events had not yet been discovered. Pai's hypothesis had been factual enough to be correct and he had to explain it many times for the strawberry-haired heroine to understand.

They had also made it quite clear that after the conversation had expired and they left the venue, they would no longer be as friendly. Ichigo's ears seemed to droop right then as she realised that if they had not been enemies, they would be valuable friends to the Mews and Earth.

Unwillingly, she had left them to go back to her friends.

In all actuality, she had wanted to learn more about what had happened to Kish, as his behaviour was beginning to become suspicious to both parties, but every time she had asked about him, the aliens had politely declined, changing the subject as if it were unspeakable to reveal information about their colleague.

She raced over to the five quite quickly, merging into their circle of congress ready and able to tell them what she had learnt from their alien foes.

Pudding was the first to speak upon her arrival, 'What did you learn, na no da?' A beam was present on the small girls face but upon asking her next question, Ichigo was surprised to see the usually energetic female to wear a small, concerned frown, 'Is Taru-Taru alright?'

Slightly taken aback by the question and yet smiling at the youngest Mew's innocence, Ichigo said, 'Yes. Both Tart and Pai are fine,' she also directed her answer to another Mew, Lettuce, who had also looked oddly concerned. Her rebuff was met with a blush of embarrassment and a small, amused smile.

A smile lit up Ichigo's face in retaliation to the newfound knowledge of their affections. She nodded to them, still grinning. Both blushed even more so.

They all looked at her expectantly, awaiting her information. Ichigo frowned and tried to remember exactly what they had told her.

She took a deep, deep breath before beginning. 'They didn't tell me much, but I did find out that they were unable to teleport because of an error of arson bought onto the power unit enabling them to dematerialise on the molecular level and be recreated on the destination end of their link, therefore disabling the teleportation process and rendering them incapable of their extreme and advanced physical abilities.'

Everyone just stared at her in shock at the level of knowledge she had seemed to acquire from standing for five minutes around their foe. Then they all sweatdropped.

Lettuce managed to break the silence nervously, her voice full of hesitation even at uttering the slightest voicing of, 'A-A-Ano, Ichigo?'

A blush of embarrassment began to creep up on Ichigo. She frowned and then shrugged, 'That's what Pai told me.' This statement seemed to be enough for them to handle, unlike the possibility that Ichigo knew words like "dematerialise", "molecular" and "teleportation process." The cat-girl glared at them all when she realised this.

Before she could rebut with a crude remark involving all of them, a rubber mallet and a pack of ice cubes, Mint stalked up to her and, promptly after her arrival next to Ichigo, decked her across the head. Hard.

Ichigo blinked in surprise and, when the pain hit home, there was a throbbing pain in the place where she had been hit, on the back of her skull, and she knew that a headache was on its way to her poor, unexpecting head.

All the Ultramarine Lorikeet said to justify her actions was the word, 'Idiot.'

Ichigo looked generally confused. Usually Mint was hostile, yes, but she wouldn't openly just hit her and call her names when she had done nothing wrong.

Ichigo paused, processing information.

Oh, wait. Yes she would.

She began to whinge to Mint who wasn't hearing any of it, 'What was that for?' She received another scowl from her so-called "friend" (now she wasn't so sure) before a long-winded explanation was on its way.

'Because you deserved it.' She started. Ichigo had no idea what she was talking about… how had she deserved that? 'You were out with your perfect boyfriend while we had to do all the work at the café and you didn't even leave us a note to your whereabouts.'

Oh.

The cat-girl was fuming. Her anger was so evident on her face right then that Mint just smirked and walked away with Zakuro, who offered to sit on a bench in the shade after the hot sun had beat down upon them all.

Not willing to be the victim of Ichigo's ramblings, Lettuce smiled hesitantly towards her then turned to pudding, the anxiety more than obvious on her pallid face. 'A-ano, Pudding-san, perhaps we should clean up some of the mess that people left in the evacuation?'

The smallest, yellow-orange Mew grinned in delight, 'I can patrol from the trees, na no da!' Both Mew's left quite quickly, deserting Ichigo with only Ryou's presence.

Ichigo grimaced and turned to the remaining ally standing next to her. She broke.

'You're going to berate me now… go ahead! Everyone else does it so why not just make everything a whole lot worse?' She snapped, feeling the anger pulsating through her system.

Ryou looked up at her, a deadpan expression on his face. As their eyes met, Ichigo felt taken aback at the raw sadness dwelling in their azure depths. She simply stared at him in mild shock as he spoke to her quite softly.

'Good job, Momomiya Ichigo' His deadpan look faded, replacing one of which adorned a small half-smile. He continued, 'This world doesn't deserve superheroes like you. You're too good for us. So us ordinary humans?'

Ichigo felt close to tears at this startling revelation and the sorrow entwined throughout Ryou's words. 'We're lucky to have you here.'

And then he left. Ichigo was certain that was as close to civil she would get from the teenager, obviously at war with the unknown events and things present in his torn past.

As she watched him walk away, she felt like she was really seeing him for the first time ever and then her mind asked her a question that only served to confuse her: did I really know him at all?

She was abandoned with all her confusing thoughts and emotions. But then, unexplainably, a smile crossed over her features when she realised that she wasn't alone in all of it. I have friends… and they're great to me…

A gentle gust of wind passed by her and she could have sworn that, when it passed by her, a beautiful melody could be heard on its wake.

"The car that we ride in
The home we reside in
The face that we hide in
The way we are tied in
As life carries on and on and on and on
Life carries on and on and on…"

End Note: Omigod. The ending of this chapter was so hard to write, only because I had finished it then lost the entire section of it due to some stupid five-o'clock-in-the-morning mistake so I had to once again rewrite it. This time, the ending is longer but I still preferred the original with all of it's kooky explanations.

I tried to duplicate it off memory as best as I could. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Love,
Exangeline.