Of This World and Yesterday
I wake up tomorrow
Brand new
A little tired
But brand new
Brand new
I'll be brand new tomorrow
-Bjork, Pluto
*
Chapter 14- Manipulation
"Wow, your Mom's understanding," Sailor Moon said as the woman disappeared from sight. "I hope my Mom doesn't mind when she finds out I'm Sailor Moon."
"She doesn't know?" Kagome asked curiously. Then she glanced at Tuxedo Kamen, who was looking away, and an uncomfortable Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune. "None of your parents know?"
That earned a derisive snort from Uranus, and Kagome wondered what her family situation was. Then she remembered that this was one of the ones who lived with the other senshi, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Saturn, and Dreamweaver all in the same home. They must not have families, she realized. At least, none to speak of.
"Oy, Kagome!" Jupiter called from where she was half holding up Venus. She and Mercury had the semi-conscious senshi standing between them, looking somewhat ill. "Can we take Venus inside to lie down a bit? She got hit pretty hard when we were fighting."
"Oh! Yes! Of course!" Kagome exclaimed, heading towards her house and motioning for them to follow her. "She can sleep as long as she likes."
"That's not a good idea," Mercury told her with a small smile, keeping pace with Jupiter. "She can sleep for a very long time if you let her."
Kagome let a smile slide onto her face as she held the door open for the other two, disappearing inside.
From beside them, there was a swirling of firelight, and there were startled glances as they saw Kirara shrink inside a ball of flames, then leap up into Sango's arms. "Neat trick," Uranus commented. "Can that one talk too?"
"No, but she can fight," Shippou told her, craning his neck up and backing away a step to see the woman's face. "That's Kirara."
"We'd better contact Rei," Tuxedo Kamen reminded them. "So she's not too worried when her Grandpa gets a phone call from Higurashi-jii-san."
"I've got it!" Sailor Moon announced, holding up her wrist and stepping out of their small circle of speakers as Sango and Miroku finally approached them.
"Kagome-sama's family took the situation well?" Miroku began. The troubled look had not left his face, and had one of them looked, they would have seen a tightly clenched right fist. "The well is completely destroyed?"
"Feh..."
"Yes...." came the trailing answers.
"Miroku-san, Sango-san, Inuyasha, Shippou-chan," Neptune told them, "We'll discuss things with Pluto. With a timekey, you will be able to return to your own era. Don't panic just yet."
A bit of hope lifted Sango's face, though Miroku's remained steadily grim.
"We'll contact them once Sailor Moon is done talking to Rei," Neptune continued, including the other absent senshi along with Pluto. Things will work out, don't worry."
"I already did!" Sailor Moon beamed as she turned around, closing her communicator wristwatch. "Kami-san says that they're on their way now, and Rei-chan says she'll get everything ready at home. She'll make sure Grandpa lets them in."
"Then all we have to do is wait."
"Right," she agreed, then winked at Inuyasha. "Makenai, Inuyasha! We won't lose. Pluto will get things set up for you again. It's not like Karasu has the ability to manipulate the Gates of Time."
"That's good news," he muttered darkly, still mulling over what Kagome's mother told him. There was something else suggested there. It's not your fault. Don't blame yourself. There's no way you could have known. Don't worry. Be careful. Take care. "The babaa tried to take my head off when-"
"Babaa?" Uranus suddenly chortled, realizing he meant the ageless Meioh Setsuna. "Sets? An old hag? Oh, I bet she just loves that...."
"Uranus," Neptune warned, half mockingly. "Don't start teasing Setsuna about her age."
"Why not?" came the laughing reply.
Neptune was shaking her wavy haired head, knowing Uranus would never change. "Have I told you you're incorrigible?"
"Not today," she replied flippantly, teasing back.
Inuyasha was watching these two talking with a slight frown growing on his face. "Uranus and Neptune, you said?" he asked, and the serious tone made the partial smiles on their faces fade away. "You two are the ones Kagome said attacked the others at that concert thing." His brows drew down slightly in suspicion. The lighthearted conversation and the fact there was no reaction to their presence now was reassuring, but he wanted to know what exactly had happened and why. Discrepancies were something he did not want to worry about, such as these 'Outer Senshi' betraying then in the middle of a battle. The ones calling themselves 'Inners' seemed to be too close knit for any kind of subversion, but if these two were willing to attack the others, he wanted to know about it. "Somebody named Mimi something. Called herself a Witch too."
"Mimete," Uranus spat with distaste. "One of the Death Busters, the lowest member of the Witches 5. She disguised herself as some teen idol named Mimi Hanyu to collect the Hoste of her fans. And yeah, I did attack them," she finished bluntly, looking Inuyasha in the eyes. "They were in our way."
"We were not," Sailor Moon muttered, folding her arms and pouting a little. "We just weren't working together yet. And you kept going on about how it was your job to fight the Death Busters alone. If we hadn't worked together, I'd never have reached Super level when I did. You wouldn't have powered up to Super level for the first time either when we fought." After a moment, Sailor Moon seemed to realize what Inuyasha meant by asking about Uranus and Neptune, and she lifted her eyes. "Uranus and Neptune aren't going to turn on us in the middle of a fight, Inuyasha. Didn't you ever make friends with someone who first tried to attack you?"
Sango coughed lightly then, and Inuyasha glanced at the taiji-ya, remembering how she had been under the impression he was the one who killed the people in her village. Then again she worked against them when Naraku first threatened her with her brother Kohaku. Though Kohaku remained an uncertain point, anything short of her younger brother was unquestionable.
"Feh," he replied, getting the idea and eyeing the two senshi opposite him warily.
"We're not offended," Neptune smiled gently, resting a hand on Uranus' shoulder. "If that's all you'd heard of us, it's an understandable precaution."
Inuyasha shrugged, glancing towards the house. Through the windows, he could see movement in the upstairs bedrooms, of people scurrying to gather their things. Something round and pink floated upward through his vision, and he backed up before Shippou bumped into him in his balloon transformation, huffing and puffing his way upward and into the air, slowly floating out over the destruction. "Oy! Shippou! Watch what you're doing!"
"Just...checking...the hole...." he huffed as he floated out over the remains. "I'm...light enough...to...land!" he popped back into normal form, landing lightly on one of the boards jutting upward. "Waaah!" he shrieked as it shifted, then stopped, settling into place with his slight weight added. He sighed in relief when it stopped, and began to look around.
"What's is look like from there?" Tuxedo Kamen asked, stepping forward and trying to see. Though Sailor Uranus was tall, he was still slightly taller, and had the best view otherwise.
The kitsune peered forward cautiously, ready to return to the balloon if his perch turned unstable again. There was a dent in the ground before him, still ringed with the base of the wooden building that had been built around it. Some splintered boards still jutted outward in an uneven square in the epicenter, the stones inside the well providing some stability to the link between worlds. A few of these stones were broken apart, laying around the inside, which was sunk in, not really a crater, but scooped.
What was once an empty well was filled in. His best guess was that the 'bomb' thing went off inside the well itself, the stone sides acting like a canon, blasting out the wellhouse even as it destroyed the inside of the well, filling it in with rubble.
"It's all filled up," he called back, "all sunk in." Glancing over his shoulder, he looked at Sailor Uranus, since she'd been the one to say things about the bomb before. "How big can a bomb be? Can it be carried in by a bird?"
Uranus shrugged, shaking her head. "Possible, if small enough, I guess. Why a bird?"
"Karasu apparently has a raven youkai as a familiar," Miroku provided. "We'd best catch everyone up, while we wait for the others to arrive, and Kagome-sama's family to leave for the Hikawa Jinja."
***
They spent a few minutes talking, mutely exchanging stories of how Uranus and Neptune had been detained in Europe, of how they arrived home, only to have Michiru wonder where everyone was, and check her mirror in time to see Eudial sparring with the senshi in front of the Crown Arcade. They dumped everything in the hallway, transformed, and ran as fast as they could to help, arriving in time to knock Miroku out of the way and to slice off one of the hydra's heads. Setsuna must have been frantic when she got home, finding luggage scattered around, and Sailor Moon told them when she spoke to the Time Guardian on the communicator, she was back at the Arcade, holding Artemis and wondering where everyone had disappeared to, the fight being over and the place swarming with emergency crews.
In exchange for that information, they swapped tales of how and why Sango, Miroku and Shippou were brought forward, why Inuyasha was there and what the Shikon no Tama was, its importance and why Karasu could be after it, as well as who and what Karasu was. Inuyasha explained, in a very edited way, about the attack she caused in the sengoku jidai, and of how she almost took Kaede's Hoste in an attempt to synthesize her youkai Vessel and her daimon spirit.
It was about then that the Higurashi family emerged from the house, Sailors Mercury and Jupiter trailing behind them, Venus somewhere inside resting. Kagome slowly hugged her family good-bye, promising to call that night, and then remained still as they began to walk out of the jinja, Sailor Jupiter following them as Kagome and Mercury headed back towards the group.
"Jupiter is going to make sure they get there okay," Mercury told them softly as the family descended the steps and vanished from view. "Make sure nothing follows them to Rei-chan's." She glanced from one face to another, and lightly touched the pin on her bow. Soft, liquid blue light coursed around her, and her fuku melted away, leaving Mizuno Ami in place of Sailor Mercury. Others glanced from one to another, and imitated the movement, elemental powers and planetary representations fading away to return them to a more normal appearance.
"I guess that leaves me with the question of where I'll be tonight then," Kagome murmured as she came to stand beside Inuyasha. Shippou leapt over from Miroku's shoulder, where he decided to sit after returning from his explorations of the wellhouse, to Kagome's shoulder. She smiled and hugged him lightly for a moment.
Michiru sidled a bit closer to Haruka, elbowing her lightly in the ribs. "Well, Haruka, do you think we could squeeze one more girl into the house tonight, if Sango-san has been staying there already?"
The taller girl sighed, shrugging. It seemed like they were running a hotel at the moment, with everybody jamming in every which way. Michiru had a big house, which was a good thing, but even big houses could only be filled to such a point before overflowing. They didn't seem to have any solid answers as to what Karasu was after, only theories, though the forerunner seemed to be that she wanted Kagome's shikon no kakera. Therefore, the place with the best protection was the most viable spot for the girl and her jewel fragments to stay.
A house packed with a taiji-ya, a youkai firecat and a horde of Sailor Senshi was going to be considerably safer than anywhere else in the city.
"Guess so. Can't get much safer than that, if this Karasu woman is actually after the shikon no kakera things you told us about."
"I'm staying with Kagome!" Shippou announced, and Kagome shook her head with a sigh. "I don't take up much room!"
Inuyasha frowned, not liking this very much and suspecting that he might get booted from his job of protecting Kagome. "Feh! I'm not leaving Kagome alone to get killed with a kid and a bunch of women-"
That particular comment brought out a furious maelstrom of female protesting, sending Miroku and Mamoru backing out of the angry crew of women around them, both having sense enough to stay out of it.
"We are certainly capable of protecting-"
"After all the fights we've been in, you think I can't defend-"
"Hey! Women can fight back just as well-"
"How dare you suggest that we can't protect our home-"
Then, into the midst of it all: "Osuwari!"
Splat.
"Bitch...."
Everyone suddenly became silent as Inuyasha was body slammed into the ground, face first. Heads huddled around, peering downward as Inuyasha began to twitch in attempts to peel himself off the ground. Then everyone turned to stare at Kagome, who was glaring at the flattened Inuyasha and fuming.
Ami held a hand to her lips thoughtfully, biting her lip as she remembered something. Kagome had done that once before, when they very first met. Then, of course, there had not been time to question the power of the word 'sit' on Inuyasha. Wide eyed, she asked, "Osuwari?"
A brow twitched in irritation, and Kagome folded her arms, looking away. "Osuwari,"
Splat. Again.
"Bitch!"
Continuing, she ignored him, saying, "is a command Kaede-baachan gave me the power to do. The necklace around his neck drags him down whenever I say it. He misbehaves..." she held up a finger, returning her gaze to Inuyasha. "He gets it."
Inuyasha growled, pulling himself up to his feet again and glowering at the ring of women around him. "Then where exactly am I supposed to go?"
"Welcome to the bachelor's club," Mamoru said, waving weakly at the hanyou and gesturing for Inuyasha to join him and Miroku at the fringes of the circle of women. Mamoru made a mental note to have a talk with both of the time displaced boys on the proper etiquette of talking to women in the 21st century. Particularly women who were Sailor Senshi and possessed the ability to variously ice, drown, shock, electrocute, set on fire, or generally blow up someone who got them angry enough. And of course if Miroku asked Usagi to 'bear his child' he'd take care of the houshi himself, though he got the feeling Miroku didn't chase taken women.
"Haruka-papa! Michiru-mama!"
The call from behind startled everyone out of their musings on the power of 'osuwari,' and heads were lifted to see the approaching missing members of the senshi team. Setsuna, Kami, Hotaru and Chibiusa had just crested the steps leading into the courtyard, and Hotaru had a hand in the air, waving to her recently returned adopted parents, as Luna and Artemis hurried forward, Diana draped on Chibiusa's shoulder.
"Oh..." Kami murmured, growing still on seeing the destruction and pressing a hand to her mouth in dismay. "The well...."
Setsuna was scanning the group, looking from the collapsed wellhouse to the group standing before the remains, a small frown increasing on her features as Hotaru and Chibiusa stared openly at the wreck in surprise, Diana leaping off the pink haired girl's shoulder to take a step closer.
"Usagi-chan," Luna began, padding over towards the girl with a worried look and peering upward. "Setsuna-san says Eudial returned? How is that possible?"
"Oy, oy, here we go again...." Haruka sighed, putting a hand to her forehead as another round of explanations were given, catching everyone up. Halfway through the story, Artemis realized Minako was not among the group, and when they got to the point she was slapped by a rather large hydra tail into a building, the white tomcat turned tail and ran into the house, glad the door was still slightly ajar to admit him.
***
"Setsuna-san," Kagome asked quietly, glancing towards the explosion site, "is it possible to re-establish the warping? I know you didn't want to bring anyone else forward, but we have to be able to at least send them back...and I can't just...well...I can't not go back anymore...we need the well...."
The Guardian of Time and Space had remained silent through the repeated tale, knowing where this was going since she stepped up onto the jinja's courtyard and saw what had happened, and its extent. During the last few days, she'd given the matter a considerable amount of thought; at first she simply admitted to herself the presence of Sango, Miroku, and even Shippou was necessary. So many people made things complicated, but if it was as they said, Sango was the one to recognize the kugutsu, showing them how to defeat it. She knew how Uranus worked. The senshi of the wind would have simply pounded away at the thing until she thought it was dead. Uranus was strong, but her methods were rather direct. Without Mercury there to analyze the situation and find a weakness, who knew what could have turned out?
Of course, they needed to go back.
That well was more than just a portal. It was the visible link and familiar path between worlds. To destroy it was to destroy morale as well. The attack was two-pronged in that respect.
Handing them a timekey was dangerous in and of itself. Even accompanying them and taking it back once the trip was over, Kagome would need one. She could not be allowed keep one with her. As much as she hated to think of it this way, the girl had already broken, even if by accident, something as dangerous as the Shikon no Tama. Kagome seemed a generally responsible girl, but the Shikon no Tama was normally locked in a linear timeline. Sending it into the flotsam and jetsam of the timestream was not appealing. Researching into her old logs and journals, peering through the mists, Setsuna couldn't help but get the feeling this was right somehow. Sense and logic screamed it was wrong, the taboos rendering it forbidden. And yet, she herself had broken all such rules. Should the timekey fall into the wrong hands- say this Naraku person the others spoke of- the end result could be of infinite proportions.
They could not stay here.
A timekey was out of the question.
Each of the senshi recognized what Setsuna began to do, tilting her head back and lifting up a hand to the air. Out of politeness and habit, they each edged away, ones closer to one of the time displacements urging them backward as Setsuna started her henshin sequence.
"Pluto Crystal Power! Make-up!"
Lavender light flowed out of her fingertips, absorbing her figure in an orb of luminescent brilliance, fading away after a moment to reveal Sailor Pluto, armed again with her Timestaff in hand, lightly tapping against the ground.
"Amazing..." Kagome managed, actually seeing one of the senshi transform for the first time. The aural light had been nearly blinding, and she blinked a few times to clear her eyesight. The sheer enormity of Pluto's power began to register for the first time, as well as the responsibility that must come with it. Each of the senshi carried that, in various forms. Kagome thought she should feel small, but for some reason, she didn't. Glancing from face to face along the line, Miroku-sama beside Sango-chan, Inuyasha beside her, Shippou there with them, she felt oddly content. They stood together the same way the senshi did, slightly apart, unified though not distant. They fought their own battles.
Turning her head back to the matter at hand, she watched as Sailor Pluto began to step among the rubble, high heels delicately clicking on the stones where she placed her feet, avoiding the splinters. Determining she was close enough to the epicenter, the woman paused, red sunlight streaming along past her and touching her frame as she looked around herself. After a moment, she took a breath and lifted her Garnet Orb into the air. Though it was not faceted, it caught the sunset glow, pulsing lightly as she began to speak calmly in a clear, dusky voice.
"Chronos, Father of the Guardian, split open the heavens. Tear through the wall of..."
Kagome felt it happening before anything else, and from the corner of her eye, saw Miroku also suddenly jerk forward. She was moving without thought, an arm out as though to ward off what was coming.
"...time...and...."
An aura of overwhelming blackness suddenly stormed up from the ground at Pluto's feet, a ebony ribbon of energy swirling upward in fluctuating arcs, spiraling around her as she attempted to rasp out the last word of her command. It failed, trailing off into a twisted scream of pain, the Timestaff slipping out of stunned hands and clattering to the ground as she writhed, alarmed cries of the senshi joining Pluto's as they too rushed forward, attempting to get to their friend.
From a step behind her, Miroku had reached into his shirt pocket, withdrawing a single ofuda and hurling it at Pluto, it hitting her just between the shoulder blades. The black energy surrounding the older woman sputtered, expanding as everyone hesitated, half backing away as it resisted the banishing power Miroku hurled at it. After a moment, the ribbon of negative aura spluttered, fading and crackling out.
With almost infinite slowness, Pluto sank to her knees, her Sailor fuku melting away as she lost consciousness, collapsing to the ground in silence.
A single, horrified cry went up. "Pluto!"
***
Kagome and Miroku were already in motion, falling down beside the limp body of Meioh Setsuna. Sparks of black electricity still crackled around her with a static charge, and a deep, pained frown creased her face, brows knotted together and lips drawn tightly. Emerald hair spilled around her head, falling across her cheek. Miroku was pulling her from her side to her back as Kagome pushed the hair aside, checking for breath as the worried senshi began to crowd forward. Absently, Kagome felt glad when she heard Inuyasha raise his voice, shouting, "Oy! You want to smother them? Back up and give them some damn room!"
From beside her, she saw another set of hands appear, Ami's, quickly moving and her computer scanning. "She's breathing," Kagome told her, earning a curt nod as the blue haired girl looked at her readings, then back again at Setsuna.
Questions were sounding behind them, out of several throats at once, querying how Pluto could be attacked, and from where and how. Michiru's voice was exclaiming that there was nothing there to attack, only to be buried under a downpour of further questions the teal haired senshi could not answer.
Miroku reached into his pocket again, drawing out another ofuda and gingerly laying it on Setsuna's lips and chin. The pained expression relaxed slightly as she slipped into a deeper sleep, spiraling down into a blackness. "Some sort of binding," he muttered, voice low enough for only Kagome and Ami to hear him.
"Binding?" That, louder, brought others attention, now to bear on the houshi. Miroku was shaking his head and leaning back on his heels where he knelt, sighing. "I'm not sure. Some kind of binding on her powers...a moment before she finished her casting, there was some kind of backlash...."
Chibiusa was edging her way forward, finally managing to break her way through all the people. Kagome had pulled the fallen woman's head into her lap, pillowing it for some comfort. "Puu...Puu's all right, ne? Ami-chan?"
The other girl leaned back, checking her readings. A small graph recorded her heartbeats, slightly too fast from shock. "Accelerated heart rate. Otherwise...it's like there's nothing there."
"Then she'll be okay, right?" Chibiusa persisted, kneeling down at Setsuna's feet and biting her lip. Behind her, Mamoru leaned down and placed a hand on her shoulder for reassurance. "Right?"
Ami remained silent. Nothing wrong, and she was registering only the signs of exertion. Nothing physical to contend with. Chibiusa took her silence, paling to whiteness and looking away.
From where she stopped, Sango knelt down beside Miroku, peering a bit closer at his closed face. "Houshi-sama. What do you mean, 'binding?'"
He sighed again, looking mildly annoyed as he thought it through. "Something to prevent her from using her powers and re-opening the portal to our time. First the well is destroyed, then the other route to the past is cut off. I didn't sense anything amiss here, either, Michiru-san," he added, glancing at Michiru, in reference to the questions the others asked her earlier. "Nor did Kagome-sama. It only activated when she used her powers."
Sango shook her head, holding up her wrist slightly. "But wouldn't it have started earlier, with my bracelet and hiraikotsu? Pluto made it-"
"No," a voice commented from behind, and Sango turned to see Kami shaking her head, hands folded and against her chin. Wide lavender eyes were sad, denying it. "She showed me how...my power is what allows for the pocket warp. I wanted to help...."
The bracelet gave off a pale lavender aura, gleaming faintly in the sunlight. Diana padded her way next to her princess, Chibiusa running a hand over her soft fur. "What about the henshin? Mom?"
The grey kitten's eyes switched from Setsuna to Luna, who was sitting on her haunches beside Usagi. "Transforming is a display of power, but more of a summoning than an actual usage. Opening the Timegate...that is Pluto's magic."
"Either way, it'd be best to get her inside and comfortable," Kagome told everyone, deciding to take charge. They could sit around and debate what happened all day, and that wasn't accomplishing anything. She began to stand, careful not to let Setsuna's head fall to the hard ground. "Inuyasha, can you help me?"
He was already moving, stepping around Ami and scooping Setsuna up as the others backed away to give him room. She was curled up in his arms, head turned in and long hair sweeping down, a floating blue skirt flapping down towards the ground, centimeters from the courtyard. For a babaa, she looked unnaturally young then, younger than the years she supposedly lived. "Where?" he asked lowly, and Kagome stood, dusting off her knees and leading everyone back into the house.
Terms of note:
makenai- I won't lose!
Hm, this was another one of those not-much-happens-but-connects-important-stuff-together kinds of chapters. Pluto's binding happened a few chapters back- remember, that was just yesterday to them, while it's been a few chapters for us, and feels like its longer. This was the result of Karasu's spell.
I'm really turning the Outer's house into a hotel...almost everyone seems to be staying there now....o.O;
And Kagome finally got to explain 'osuwari' to the senshi...lol. The only other time she's used it was when they first met, and she kept him from picking a fight with the three senshi after the first hydra attack. Not a good time to explain why 'sit' bodyslams Inuyasha. ^.~
Originally this was going to be a part of chapter 13, but then the chapter would have been really long...so I split it in two. Hope you don't mind. ^^;
Ja ne!
~Queen
Coming up next, in Chapter 15: Enduring-
If it was destroyed, then the time displaced group would have an additional problem. Getting home. The present was probably fun to visit, but it was unlikely they'd want to stay there. Telling one of them to simply 'cheer up' would not work....