"Please...Magic Knights..."
A young girl with short brown hair was suddenly awakened.
"It's only a dream," Fuu Hououji told herself. Princess Emeraude's Wish had already been fulfilled, so why should she be calling now?
7:00 AM. Seeing as it was time to wake up anyway, Fuu shook off the last remnants of drowsiness and got out of bed. As the sun crept through the blinds into her room, she recalled the events of the past few weeks.
"I still can't believe I went to another world and did all that," she said to herself. "I wonder how Hikaru-san and Umi-san are doing," she thought as she got dressed to go to school.
After a hearty breakfast, she was off. "I almost wish we didn't have school on Saturday," Fuu remarked as she admired the morning's glory.
"Puu pu pu pu puu!" went a little ball of white fluff that bounced merrily along the road.
"Mokona-san!?" Fuu was shocked. First the dream, now Mokona here in Tokyo.
"What's going on?" she wondered. "Mokona-san, please wait up." As she walked towards it, the ground suddenly gave way, leading her to who knows where.
"Are we going back to Cephiro? But Hikaru-san and Umi-san aren't with me..."
Fuu's thought was interupted by her posterior meeting the ground.
All she could see were strawberry-hued trees and earth white as snow.
"Oh my," Fuu remarked as she assessed the impact on her rear. "This doesn't look like Tokyo. Mokona-san, do you know where we are?" inquired Fuu.
"Puu puu!" exclaimed the animated marshmallow.
"I wonder how I'll get back. There's a report due in class today..."
"I'm late! I'm late!" exclaimed a girl with long blonde balled-up hair. She bumped into Fuu, knocking both of them on the ground.
"I'm so sorry!!" she bowed up and down like a see-saw.
"That's all right. Do you know where we are?" asked Fuu.
"Where we are? Gee, I was so worried about being late, I didn't notice everything looked so weird."
"Oh, where are my manners? My name is Fuu Hououji. I am 14 years old and in second year junior high."
"I'm Usagi Tsukino. I'm 14 too."
"Pleased to meet you, Usagi-san." Fuu bowed gracefully, with a gentle smile on her face.
"Just Usagi is fine, heh heh," Usagi managed to say with an uncomfortable grin. "This girl reminds me of Ami," she thought. "Oh, Miss Haruna is going to get me for being late again!!" she ranted. "That cat didn't wake me up on time, as usual."
(Luna: What do you mean I didn't wake you up on time? You overslept, as usual.)
"You mean you rely on a cat to wake you up?" Fuu asked with a puzzled expression.
"Well, it's a long story..." Usagi stalled.
"I think I understand your predicament," Fuu nodded in response as she recalled her first experience on another world. "We seem to be a long way off from Tokyo."
"Wahhh! My attendance record is bad enough as it is!! Can't we get back before the chimes sound?"
"Perhaps Mokona-san can help us." Fuu picked up Mokona and presented it to Usagi.
"Pu puuuu," Mokona hummed.
"Kyaaa! What's that?" Usagi exclaimed.
"Um, well, Mokona-san is a, how do I say this..." Fuu said as she racked her brains for an answer.
Usagi felt her stomach grumbling. "If it's made of ice cream, I'll eat it. I haven't had anything to eat since breakfast."
"Pu PUUUUU!" let out Mokona, as it tried to get away from Usagi.
"Please don't say things like that, Usagi-san. Mokona-san is very excitable."
"But I'm hungry!" whined Usagi. "Can't I have a nice cake or something before lunch?"
"Mokonaaaa!"
A certain long-haired young lady, with bullwhip in hand, was chasing Mokona.
"Umi-san, what are you doing with that whip?"
"I'm going to give that bouncing marshmallow what it deserves: PUNISHMENT!" Umi ranted while attempting to lash Mokona.
"PU PU PU PUUUU!" Mokona voiced in terror.
"Now Umi-san is here as well. What in the world is going on?" Fuu said to herself. "Please stop that, Umi-san. Mokona-san might get hurt."
"That's what it gets for messing with my cakes!"
"Cakes? Where, where?" inquired a starving Usagi Tsukino.
"Eh? Who are you?" asked Umi. She dropped the whip, allowing Mokona to seek refuge.
"Oh, yeah...I'm Usagi Tsukino," she said in reply. "Do you really have cakes? I'm staaaarving!" Usagi's eyes glistened with a thin film of tears.
"Of course I have cakes!" Umi piped in as she opened her basket. "Ja~n! I made them myself, you know," she beamed with pride. "Help youself."
"Thank you, thank you! You're wonderful Umi..."
"...Ryuuzaki. I'm Umi Ryuuzaki. And of course I'm wonderful. My family wouldn't raise me any other way," she grinned from ear to ear.
"Pu pu pu puuuuuu," Mokona said as it shook it's head.
"Who cares what you think, mallow-head?" snapped Umi.
Usagi wolfed down a strawberry shortcake in nothing flat. "That was great! Do you have more?"
"EH!? You finished eating it already? Good thing I saved something else for you..." Umi said as she turned to Fuu.
"How thoughtful of you, Umi-san." Fuu had a radiant smile on her face, that seemed to be magnified by the glasses she wore.
Usagi, however, was once again despondent. "I wanna go home! My mom won't let in the house if I miss school!" She cried a fountain of tears that flooded Umi's feet.
"STOP THAT!! Do you know how much these shoes cost!?" Umi's enlarged head bellowed at a now bewildered Usagi.
"I can't help it! Don't you want to go home too? I WANNA GO HOME!!"
"Home?" Umi took a good look at her surroundings, and felt an eerie sense of déjà vu. "Hey Fuu, where are we anyway? I was so busy chasing that fluff ball, I didn't notice where we were."
"Well, we don't seem to be in Tokyo."
Umi tripped over in disbelief. "Of course we're not in Tokyo! Does Tokyo have ground that's covered in powdery-white stuff in summer? Or those weird-looking trees?" she said after getting back on her feet.
"I guess not..." Fuu said as her glasses shimmered in the sunlight.
Meanwhile, Usagi was bawling her head off. "I WANNA GO HOME!! I even miss my bratty brother!! PUHLEEEEAZE LET ME GO HOME!!!"
Suddenly, the ground disappeared from under her feet and Usagi vanished from sight.
Umi cried out, "Hey! Where do you think you're going? If you're going back to Tokyo, don't leave us behind!"
"Pu puuu..." cooed Mokona.
"Shut up, you bunny-eared throw pillow. I bet you had something to do with our being here."
"Umi-san, Mokona-san is only trying to make us feel better."
"Since when can you understand what that over-sized marshmallow is saying?"
"Well, it looks like Mokona-san is trying to console us."
"Pu PUU!"
"ARGH! Stop coddling that ball of fluff! Hikaru! Why aren't you here to make sense of what Mokona is saying?!" whined Umi.
"AHH!" Thud. "Eh?! Where am I?" cried out a now cat-eared, pigtailed redhead.
"Hikaru-san? What are you doing here?"
"I don't know. One minute I was in class, the next thing I know, I'm in this strange place, Fuu-chan."
"Puu puu puu PUU!"
"Mokona! I'm so happy to see you here with Fuu-chan and Umi-chan. But why are we all here?"
"That's what I'd like to know. I have a fencing match this afternoon. The whole school is counting on me," Umi told Hikaru. "I'd like to know how that girl disappeared from here."
"Girl? What girl are you talking about Umi-chan?"
"This really annoying little ditz with balls on her head," Umi said as she cupped her hands over head.
"Please don't insult people behind their backs, Umi-san. Besides, she just wanted to go home."
"We all want to go home, but do you see me crying my eyes out?" Umi shot back.
"Hello there, pretty girls," came a melodious chorus.
"Eh?! Who are you?" Umi asked the identical-looking newcomers. They seemed to have numbers on their somewhat tight-fitting dresses.
"I am Rav Uno."
"I am Rav Dos."
"I am Rav Tres."
"I am Rav Quatro."
"Together, we are the RAV FOUR!" they shouted in chorus. "We are the most popular idol singers on this world."
"Idols? You mean they have idol singers on other worlds? And I thought there were more than enough in Japan..." Umi shuddered as a bead of sweat formed on her brow.
"You know, they look like quadruplets," said Fuu.
"Of course they're quadruplets! Nothing ever gets past you, does it, Fuu?" Umi cried out in exasperation.
"You know, it's really hard to find pretty girls on this world. You're visitors, aren't you?" asked Uno.
"Yes, we are visitors, but I'm afraid we don't know what brought us here," Fuu replied.
"Whaddaya call the hole I fell through, then?" demanded Umi.
"But we don't know what made the hole, Umi-san."
"Allow us to explain," the Rav Four chimed in unison.
This lecture is a public service announcement brought to you by the Rav
Four, courtesy of the Ogawa Agency.
Hammerspace Theory and Its Applications
"As you all know, we exist in what is known as 'normal' space," began Uno. She then brought out a large blackboard and rolled down an impressive-looking chart.
"But there exists another kind of space, known as hammerspace," continued Dos.
"Hammerspace's existence was first proposed by Earthians to explain the phenomenon of females having hammers appear out of nowhere to use against males," stated Tres.
"But on worlds with no males, that theory was moot. It was discovered that hammerspace not only serves as a handy storage area that could be accessed anywhere and at anytime, but it could be used for instantaneous point-to-point travel anywhere in the space-time continuum," Quatro added.
"Unfortunately," Uno reported, "there is no reliable method of controlling hammerspace portals."
"As a result, nearly all hammerspace travel is accidental. That is, the travellers usually do not want to go where the portal takes them. They may not even aware of their destination's existence," Dos explained.
"So most hammerspace journeys are one-way in nature, due to the simple fact that the traveller was unaware of the mode of transport undertaken," followed Tres.
"And that brings us to the end of today's lecture. Have a nice day!" concluded Quatro.
"Oookay, so how do we get home?" asked Umi, with arms crossed and a skeptical look on her face.
"Why do you want to go home so soon? Please visit our world a bit longer. We don't get many visitors," pleaded Uno.
"Yeah, and the ones we do get usually aren't very cute, either," Dos opined.
"What does cute have to do with anything?" Umi asked, with an uneasy feeling in her stomach.
"Since there aren't any men on this world, who else are we supposed to do it with?" Tres asked Umi. Umi started feeling very sick in the stomach.
"Oh, so you're all lesbians," Fuu concluded.
"Fuu, do you know you have a gift for stating the obvious?" Umi asked as she placed her hand on her forehead.
"O-hoho!" Fuu laughed out in embarassment with hand over mouth as her glasses shimmered in the sunlight.
"Oooh, the one with glasses is sooo cuuute!" exclaimed Quatro.
"What's your name, pretty girl?" they asked Fuu in chorus.
"Fuu Hououji. Just call me Fuu," she said with her usual graceful smile.
"Hey, wait a minute! I'm pretty too!" Umi cried out.
"Yeah, but you shout too much, so you're not cute enough," Uno said matter-of-factly.
"Why you..." Umi fumed as the Rav Four fawned over Fuu.
"Now let's take off the glasses..." Dos began. "Wah! You look even prettier without them."
"And maybe you should take off your jacket..." Tres continued, "...coz it's going to get pretty warm when we're done..."
Fuu was beginning to feel a little bit uncomfortable. "Do you think it's all right to do this?"
"Of course it's all right! We're all girls here, so we don't have to be embarassed, right?" asked Quatro.
"That's right!" agreed Uno.
"Oh! It looks like we missed another cute one!" Dos cried with joy as she looked at Hikaru.
"Ah, um, my name is Hikaru Shidou. Just call me Hikaru, Dos-chan," she managed to say as her cat ears and tail popped out.
"Kyaaa! Aren't those ears adorable? And she called you Dos-chan!" Tres shouted with glee.
"And I think I could work something out with the tail..." Quatro said in a seductive tone.
"Um, well, I think I should be getting home now, heh heh," Hikaru said nervously.
"Oh please watch our concert this afternoon! You'll probably be the only cute girls in the audience! Besides, our manager hasn't seen anyone from her world in a long time," they pleaded with Hikaru, Umi and Fuu.
"Your manager?" Umi asked.
"Of course. You don't think we can be a successful idol group without a manager, do you?"
"Speaking of which, what are the four of you doing here when we still have some rehearsing to do?" Out walked a girl with curly brown hair that went pass her shoulders, who wore somewhat thick glasses. "I am not happy to find you four goofing off."
"But Chi!!! They're the first cute girls we've seen in long time. We haven't done it in ages!"
"As a manager of ditzes, I've done it all," Chi moaned to herself.
"Excuse, but did they say you were from Earth?" asked Fuu.
"Oh, yes indeed. My card." Chi got her pack of business cards and presented one to Fuu.
Fuu read the carefully worded business card:
Chigako Ogawa Wise and beautiful manager of Mamono Hunters and idol singers, private investigator. Proprietor, the Ogawa Agency.
"But doesn't this interfere with school?" Fuu asked Chi, seeing she wore a highschool uniform.
"I haven't exactly had to worry about school since I ended up here. Oh, if only I had a copy of All You Really Need To Know About Hyperspace and Pandimensional Travel."
"I'm afraid that book is out of print. I needed to look up something in it for a story I was writing, but I couldn't find a copy anywhere," sighed Fuu.
"How did you know about that book? Only Mamono Hunters and their managers, ahem, are supposed to know about it."
"I asked my friend Azusa Kanzaki-san about it."
"Azusa?! She's not supposed to let the general public know the secrets of Mamono Hunting!" fumed Chi. "She's still in training..."
"We write to each other. She said she couldn't send the book by mail. Something about the possibility of 'accidental activation while in transit'," Fuu replied.
"Fat chance she'll be able to send it here, accidental activation or not," sighed Chi.
"I suppose. Azusa-san doesn't even know where we are," Fuu remarked.
"Fuu-chan! Let's pick up where we left off!" interupted the Rav Four.
"But I don't think I should be doing this..." Fuu protested, as they stroked her face.
"But you'll like it!" Uno insisted.
"Have some fun for once in your life," teased Dos as she attempted to disrobe Fuu.
Fuu had to come up with something quick, before the four managed to besmirch her honor.
"Oh, how are you today, Mamono-san?" Fuu said, loud enough to be heard by the four not-so-wholesome idols.
"Mamono-san?!" echoed the sex-starved quartet.
"Now, Mokona-san," Fuu signalled.
"Puu puu," went Mokona, unnoticed by the Rav Four. The jewel on Mokona's forehead glowed blood red, and a demon emerged, yellow eyes, horns, fangs, tentacles and all.
"KYAAAH! It's a huge, ugly demon! Run for it!" shouted Uno.
"Rats, if it was a cute demon, I wanted to see what it's like to do it with tentacles," complained Dos as they ran for their lives.
"You moron, there are no cute demons! I should know, I've seen more than my fair share!" yelled Chi as she started fleeing.
"Chigako-san, there's no need to run," Fuu called out when the Rav Four were out of earshot.
"Are you nuts Fuu? There's a demon that might eat us, rape us, kill us or do all of the above!"; exclaimed Umi.
"Umi-chan is right, Fuu-chan! We don't have our weapons, so we can't fight the demon," shouted Hikaru.
"Mokona-san, you can make the mamono diappear now!" Fuu cried out.
"Puu puu," Mokona replied.
Pop. The demon vanished.
"You mean you had Mokona conjure up a fake demon, just to scare off the Rav Four?!" Umi ranted as her head expanded to it's full size.
"But they were going to do 'it' with me. I'm not ready yet," explained Fuu.
"Why didn't you tell us? I almost had a heart attack!" Umi screamed even as her head returned to normal.
"Then they wouldn't have been scared off," Fuu said flatly.
"You could have asked me to stop them. I'm their manager, after all," Chi rebuked Fuu.
"I'm so sorry, Chigako-san, but I didn't think they'd listen to anyone, not even you," Fuu apologized.
"Please don't scare me like that again, Fuu-chan," cried Hikaru, tears streaming down her face. "I want to go home and see my brothers and Hikari!" she bawled.
Suddenly, the ground beneath her feet disappeared and Hikaru was out of sight.
"Why does Hikaru get to go home before we do?!" whined Umi."I wanna go home too!"
As if to satisfy her demand, the ground did the same with Umi and she was gone.
"Well, it looks like you're all alone now, Fuu," said Chi.
"But you're still here," countered Fuu.
"Yes, but I have to get to a concert in 30 minutes. See you soon!" Chi left post-haste, trying to catch up with her group.
"I'm sorry as well, Magic Knight Fuu Hououji."
"Princess Emeraude!? So it wasn't just a dream..." Fuu began, as she saw the Pillar of Cephiro for the first time since her Wish had been granted. She was once again in the form of a young girl.
"But you can't be here, you're supposed to be..." Fuu started to say, stopping in mid-sentence.
"...dead," Princess Emeraude finished for her. "I had hoped to be united with Zagato in death as I could not in life. Instead, I find myself on this accursed world, where men are forbidden."
"Where are we?" asked Fuu.
"We are on the world of Centra, where your Whine detemines everything. The fact that we still remain on this world means that our Whines are not strong enough." Princess Emeraude replied.
"But I've never whined once in my life."
"Precisely. As the Pillar, I had to sacrifice my own desires for the benefit of Cephiro. My Will is not enough to compensate for my lack of Whine. Only those who can Whine with all their might can return from whence they came."
"But, who is the Pillar of this world, then?"
"Someone who has an enormous Whine. She had been raised on Earth, but upon returning to this world, her true identity was revealed."
"BIYEEEEH! EIKO! I WANT EIKOOOO!" roared a distant voice with hurricane force.
"Her name is Shiiko Kotobuki."
Lauren/Primera did an illo of the Rav Four for me, available on my website's version of this page. Since I'm the new CLAMP fic archivist, a little self-promotion can't hurt ^_^
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