Of This World And Yesterday

If you ever get close to a human
And human behaviour
Be ready to get confused
There's definitely no logic
To human behavior
-Bjork, Human Behavior

Chapter 23- Storm

A slim hand was placed on the glass door, pushing it open to admit four girls into a steel grey sky. The dimness had tinted the air and the scene around them, darkening the world into shades that blended and merged with each other rather than a flush of brilliant afternoon brightness. The chill of the air permeated the fabric of their school uniforms, causing the pigtailed blonde to fold her arms and shiver momentarily.

Makoto brushed a stray tendril of hair from her eyes, having caught on the wind that blew from above. That day had been one of anticipation; waiting, watching, wondering if word would come from Haruka and Michiru about Karasu's whereabouts. Did they find her? What did they find if they did not? Time had ticked away, and just before lunch, a message came from the main office asking for Usagi to pick up her lunch. Apparently her neighbor- a nice, teal haired girl, the office lady said- had dropped it off since Usagi had left it at home, and her mother couldn't take it in herself. At lunch, each of them had gathered around their leader to read the note pinned inside the sack. Written in Michiru's clean, elegant hand they found the words:

Konnichiwa, Usagi-chan, Ami-chan, Mako-chan and Minako-chan.

I hope this letter finds you well. I'm afraid we weren't able to find what we were looking for when we went out shopping today- the store was completely bought out! But we aren't giving up just yet. There's sure to be other places with the lovely decorations we saw the other day. I'm sure the others will be disappointed when we pass that along. We'll be out window shopping, maybe get some other groceries. Just a few more things I'd like to pick up. Usagi, do try to share the sweets Haruka and I bought for your lunch. I'm sure you'll all enjoy them.
Until this afternoon-
Yours, Michiru

The meaning was clear enough to the senshi. Karasu's nest was empty. They would be passing the message along, probably in the same way, to the others. Any other details, and they'd have to wait for after school, when they could talk privately and find out what more they could.

Now though, the forbidding sky gave chills, ones that were not necessarily from cold. Other students tucked their heads down and clutched their books tightly as they headed into the oncoming wind, sensing a storm coming and wishing to get home before a downpour.

"That can't be natural," Minako murmured as they angled themselves away from the people heading out of the building. "It gives me the creeps."

"It's not," Makoto confirmed, glancing at the passing members of the student body, scanning them with emerald eyes. They were unusually quiet, the usual clamor of being free of school for the day lacking, faces taciturn. She swept her eyes again to the sky, feeling a sickly sensation lift the hairs on the back of her neck. The feeling had been irritating her for most of the afternoon, though indoors, she had been able to ignore it for the most part, trying to concentrate on her home economics class. "Look at those clouds...."

Swirls had formed high above, spiraling darkly and churning in the heaven, a ring in the air above. It was preternatural, as though signifying the oncoming of a tornado, twisting counterclockwise in several different points around the city. Far in the distance, there was a sharp marking where the clouds ended and normal daylight began, a thick shadow laying across the most heavily populated areas of the land.

"Michiru-san's note sounded like Karasu was up to something," Usagi interjected, edging her way closer to the other three girls, Ami, Makoto and Minako turning to look at her as she spoke. "Maybe one of us should go get Rei-chan." Usagi let her eyes flick away from the others for a moment, towards the stormcloud in the center of the city. "We didn't get to make any kind of meeting plans with the others, but I think we should all get together...does that sound okay?"

There were nods.

"I'll go get Rei-chan," Minako offered, stepping back a bit. "Mako-chan may have the longest legs, but," she lifted a finger to the air dramatically, "I have been practicing my late-for-school-sprint for years." A half teasing wink finished off her declaration, and then faded, replaced with a determined, serious look. "Why don't we try to meet at the old Mugen site? That seems to be general area where the clouds are darkest."

Minako's statement made Usagi go white, as Ami nodded in agreement, saying: "That would be my guess, too. There's been too much to do with the Death Busters so far...and if Karasu was living somewhere nearby there, she may go back. Someone should go get Chibiusa-chan and Hotaru-chan. No one should be alone at this point."

"I'll get them," announced Usagi, folding her hands together tightly. "I'll give Haruka-san and Michiru-san a call too, to see where they are and let them know where to meet."

Makoto shifted the weight on her feet, letting her eyes linger on the grey horizon again. There was something inherently disturbing about it, making her nerves stand on edge, bitingly sharp. There would be a battle soon. She could feel it. "Then Ami-chan and I will head over there now."

Looking from face to determined face, Usagi tried to calm herself. Battles never ceased to make her afraid. There were times when she wondered if someone wouldn't come back. If maybe one battle would be the last. They were stronger now than ever before, though the fearful sensation never would completely leave. Always the chance remained. That maybe one day Jupiter and Mercury would disappear. Or Venus and Mars. Separating worried her, remembering the last time they faced the Death Busters. The Inners went higher into the tower of Mugen Academy, while she and the Outers descended below, down, down into the depths of the building. They had almost died then, and the link between them all that gave her the Super transformation had been cut. That had been such a horrible feeling, draining, sinking, believing that they could be dead. Those three faces that stood before her now, and the one that was halfway across town, at her own school. The concept of losing them weighed heavily on her mind for some reason. A premonition, perhaps...if not of this time, then maybe the future. Usagi, though, was not prone to seeing the future, and so she dismissed it.

The clouds swirled darkly now, and separating would be the fastest way to make sure everyone was not alone. Loneliness was one thing that could weaken them; the senshi were strongest together. There was nothing she could really do, other than get to Chibiusa.

Her voice sounded a bit thin as she warned, "Be careful, okay everyone?"

Beginning to separate to their own ways, Ami, Makoto and Minako paused, glancing at her and hearing the anxiety in her voice. "Don't worry, Usagi-chan," Minako told her, trying to cheer her up. "Just go get Chibiusa-chan. We'll meet you at Mugen as soon as we can. Just you don't be late. You know how mad Rei-chan will get if you are," she winked, holding a finger to her lips conspiratorially. Usagi managed a feeble smile that grew stronger, slowly lighting her face gently.

On unspoken agreement, the four parted ways.

Precariously, Shippou balanced the tray in his small hands, trying to keep the items from sliding off and onto the clean swept floor of the hallway. A sensation prickled on his senses, and had been since that morning, oddly unidentifiable. Kami had positioned herself at the window of Setsuna's room, pulling aside the white lace curtains and looking out onto the street from the padded window seat. She sat there, still and silent, quietly telling him to go get a fresh bowl of water and something for them to drink.

Kami would be eerie in that way, at times. The little ghost girl he saw ages ago had the same demeanor, one moment smiling and playing, the next with faded eyes that did not see a mortal realm. The water in the bowl he was carrying glistened slightly in the light that pressed itself through the stained glass windows in the hallway, catching deep blue and green facets from either side of the door. His reflection caught on the water in the bowl, and he tried to imagine himself looking like this permanently.

As a kitsune, his small hands and feet made carrying the tray difficult; so he aged himself a bit, giving himself longer arms and legs, broader hands. He still only looked about ten, but he could reach the kitchen sink and turn the knob to let loose the stream of cool water. Placing a damp washcloth on Setsuna's forehead really seemed redundant at times. She had no fever, and how much a wet cloth really helped anyway he didn't know. But it gave both himself and Kami something to do while they waited and watched, keeping them from wringing hands helplessly. The carbonated drink the senshi called 'Pepsi,' or 'Mountain Dew,' was very good, even though he wasn't really sure how it bubbled without heat. Sometimes the fizz would catch on his nose and make him sneeze, while making him slightly giddy off of a sudden rush of sugar. Shippou liked Pepsi and Mountain Dew.

The door suddenly banged, and there was a muffled curse from outside as Shippou clambered to set aside the tray on the hall tree and unlock the closed door. Pulling it aside, Inuyasha barreled his way in with Kagome still half clinging to him, trying to disentangle herself from where she was riding on his back. Judging by the frantic expressions on their faces, something had happened. Something bad.

"Kagome? Inuyasha...?"

Kagome was headed straight for the hallway closet, flinging open the door and kneeling down, pushing her way past long, hanging trenchcoats and hauling a box out from where it had been set beside the vacuum cleaner. Turning around, Inuyasha blinked once in slight surprise at Shippou's appearance, currently confused and worried. He'd aged himself a bit, though the pointed tips of his ears and the fluffy tail easily gave him away. "Oy, why'd you change what you look like? You going somewhere?"

"No, baka, I was helping out with chores!" the kitsune snapped back, glaring up into Inuyasha's face. "What's going on? Why are you here? The others haven't gotten back from school yet. What happened?"

"I've got them!" Kagome announced, pulling items out of the box at her knees. A quiver of fletched arrows and a plain, carbon bow, currently being strung in Kagome's fingers as she stood up. "I'm so glad Setsuna-san and the others got these the other day."

"Happy now?" Inuyasha asked her, folding his arms and looking away from Shippou. "We should get going. I don't like the way outside looks."

"Inuyasha! Kagome!" Shippou repeated, getting annoyed that he was being ignored. "What's going on?"

"It's begun, hasn't it?" a soft voice interrupted from the shadows, and they saw Kami descend another step, pausing halfway down the stairs. She held the hem of her skirt in one hand, the other resting lightly on the railing. "Inuyasha-kun?"

"Karasu came to talk to me," Inuyasha replied grumpily, ears twitching in irritation at the memory of the meeting. His golden eyes flicked down somewhat towards the unusually taller Shippou, including him in the explanation. "She's got some kind of vendetta against humans, says they do all kinds of crazy shit to each other and it's their fault there aren't any youkai in this time."

Shippou popped out of his small transformation, returning to his usual age once more and dropping down to sit, folding up his legs. He had been wondering where all the youkai were. But humans killing them all off or something? Weird.

"She also tried to get the Shikon no Tama again. Damn kugutsu," Inuyasha spat, watching Kagome silently raise a hand to her throat and place her fingers over the small lump under her shirt, where the tama rested. It had been a little more than five minutes for her to get out of her school, and she argued that she had to change out of her uniform and then go to see the nurse, as well as convince the elderly lady that she actually was sick, and not faking. Fortunately, with Kagome's track record of 'sick days,' the woman didn't want to have to call an ambulance due to Kagome's appendix bursting on school grounds.

By the time Kagome was free of school and they'd gotten into the outer fringes of the Juuban district again, the sky had gone from dingy to menacing, swirls of clouds spiraling around the city and rumbling threateningly in the heavens. Lightning arched from cloud to cloud, giving off a heavy static in the air, yet no bolts of thunder cracked their way to the ground. The approaching storm was particularly strange, since it focused itself over the city. In the distance, they could see from the rooftops that there was sunlight pouring around the suburbs, shining brightly around Tokyo itself.

"We're going to go find Sango-chan, Miroku-sama and the senshi," Kagome told Shippou and Kami as she slung her bow around her shoulders, pushing back the quiver so that the strap settled lightly over her shoulder. "If there is a battle now and she's after the tama, then we should try to get to the others, too. And we don't want to destroy your house in a fight, Kami-san."

The older girl watched with wide eyes as Inuyasha and Kagome moved together again, him letting her climb up onto his back and hang on as they prepared to leave. "Mugen is a few blocks from the shopping district, ne?" Kagome asked, earning her a curt nod in reply. "Okay then. We'll head up that way and see if we can find any of the others."

Inuyasha wrapped his arms around Kagome's legs as he moved towards the door. As an afterthought, he glanced over his shoulder and looked at the two in the hallway. "Uranus said that Karasu moved out of her nest place. So she's out running around somewhere. If she knows where you live, she might come here. You'd better stay."

"But I want to help!" Shippou protested automatically, leaping up as Kami moved to the foot of the stairs, silently.

"We will."

"What?" Shippou demanded, bewildered.

Kami looked down at him quietly, lips drawn thin though she spoke to Inuyasha. "Go find the others. We will take care of Setsuna-san. Go fight Karasu."

Kagome slipped her hands around Inuyasha's neck, and the two of them exchanged an even glance for a moment, before Inuyasha took off again, heading out into the rumbling sky.

Kami hesitated a moment as the storm door banged to a close behind them. She placed her fingertips against the glass and watched them until they vanished from her sight. Distantly, she felt Shippou standing at her feet, glaring up at her for keeping him back.

"I can help fight," he argued stoutly, talking as though to convince himself. "I'm not going to be little forever."

"No. No, you won't be, will you?" Kami asked him gently, looking down with a half smile. "But it doesn't do you any good to get killed at this point, Shippou-kun. Let us protect you until you're grown up, ne?" The half smile widened slightly, sadly, and she stepped back from him a bit, back into the darkness at the foot of the stairs. She lifted her hand into the air.

"Weaver Dream Power! Make-up!"

Her silhouette filled the hallway with light, and Shippou had to shield his eyes both out of the brightness that hit them and out of a polite unease, since the form there was clothed only in light for a moment. When the lavender mist of her transformation faded away, she opened her eyes and stood there, framed for a moment in the archway to the living room, the ebony shaft of her naginata in her white gloved hand.

"I'll catch up to them eventually," Dreamweaver told him, grasping the intricate halberd with both hands and balancing its weight. "When we all fight, Setsuna-san will awaken. She will not let us fight alone. Be here to let her know what is going on, Shippou-kun. Please?"

He couldn't deny her, so he mutely looked at the floor until he saw a set of knees fall into his vision. Weaver was kneeling in front of him, and she smiled at him warmly for a moment when he lifted his head. The look in his eyes told her he would stay. "Arigatou, Shippou-kun. Arigatou."

Then she ran after the others.

Water pounded against the inside of the porcelain sink, sluicing around the edges and swirling clockwise down the drain, gurgling into the pipes. Thin hands were placed under the steady stream, and the heat made the girl wince, though she did not move away. The harshness of the water made her feel more awake, the hard heat jerking her mind away from the numbness that had settled itself over her body since that morning. The world weighed heavily on her shoulders, making her head feel muddled and thick, not quite painful, but as though she walked through clouds.

She lowered her head, and splashed the steaming water onto her face. Still dripping, she reached for a paper towel and wiped away the droplets that clung to her cheeks. A few strands of straight hair caught on the remaining dampness and clung.

Tomoe Hotaru balled up the paper and held it in her hands, looking into the mirror across from the sink in the girls' bathroom of her school. The place smelled of antiseptic, of lemon scented bleach and of a girls' flowery, cheap perfume that itched at her eyes. Nebulous and violet, they stared back at her through the chipped mirror, her dark lashes still holding some of the water on them. Had any students been left in the school, they would have wondered if she had been crying. She had not; no red blotches marred her pale face. Even now, she could hear the last of her classmates trickling away as the final bell pealed through the air. Empty. Soon everything would be empty. Empty classes, empty school, empty...empty....

The sky was cloudy through the window in her last class, forbidding and dark. She sighed, pushing at the damp hair that clung stickily to her face. The mirror that held her reflection showed nothing but herself, and as she tossed the bunched up paper towel into the trash, she reached into the pocket of her pleated skirt, pulling out the letter she had received this morning. She unfolded the sharp creases and skimmed Haruka's scratchy handwriting again, feeling a sense of unease well up as she understood the meaning.

-Oy, Hotaru-chan,
Michiru and I went to that store this morning. The moving sale was over, so I guess we were disappointed. We'll have to see if there's anywhere else with those puppets we all wanted to get.
Just thought I'd let you know before you and Chibiusa-chan go shopping this afternoon. Remember to look out for strangers.
-Love,
Haruka-papa

She'd been called down to the office that morning to pick up her 'lunch.' Which was puzzling, since Hotaru knew perfectly well that hers was sitting in the brown paper bag inside her backpack. It had been the last thing she'd done that morning, putting in a box of Kool-aid, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and an apple. Being told her 'older brother' was there to drop it off, Hotaru had been worried. Telling people that Haruka was her 'papa' was likely to be more attention getting than saying she was her older 'brother,' but if Haruka-papa had stopped by to warn her- and this was clearly a warning- then things were looking bad.

Feeling ill didn't help matters any.

Queasy for most of the day, both lunches that she was stuck with went uneaten, tossed into the garbage bins in the cafeteria. The store-bought bag lunch looked too rich for her at the moment, a dark chocolate brownie to go with a tuna salad sandwich. The concept of fish made her stomach turn over, and she refolded the lined paper again, slipping it back into her pocket and taking a deep breath. She had to keep going. She could rest later. If Karasu had moved, as the note suggested, then she was out roaming. It was her job to be ready, to fight if needed, to become Sailor Saturn, one of the senshi that defended the Earth. She had to be ready, had to be ready, had to be ready....

A deep breath calmed her slightly as she tried to soothe frayed nerves. Why did the air conditioning have to be up so high today? It made everything so very cold. With the outside humidity, it was probably stuffy and warm.

The hallways were void of people, though faint sounds still murmured distantly, and there was a squeal as the intercom flicked on, announcing that the drama club would be meeting in Room 284 today for practice. Silently, Hotaru padded her way down the hall, heading back towards her last class to retrieve her books. The smell of stored chemicals in the science lab had finally gotten to her, and her teacher had been kind enough to let her go to the bathroom even if there was only a few minutes left before the final bell. They'd been studying cells today, taking bits of onion peel, staining them purple and placing them on glass slides, seeing the little boxes that made up the plant fibers of the vegetable, the dot in the center that was the nucleus. Strange, how something so small could be lit up for the human eye to see, though just a few mirrors and a strong enough lamp.

The fluorescent ceiling lights were still on, though everything had been returned neatly to storage cabinets along the far wall. Through the windows, she could see the playground behind the school through the slats of the blinds, swings idly rocking in the breeze. But her attention did not linger long on the outside. Her books were still piled where she left them in the far corner of the room, organized neatly on top of the table. The pale hand of a man was resting on top of the stack, still in the silence. He was tall, standing casually in the lab with the attitude of one who knew where he was and what to do there, professional and calm in his own element. A white lab coat was settled around his shoulders, and slightly shaggy white hair fell into his eyes, framed by a pair of sparkling round glasses.

Hotaru felt the world spin away.

"Papa?"

Another short chapter, I know- but things are happening very fast now. I know, you probably hate me with that kind of cliffhanger...patience is a virtue? ::dodges thrown tomatoes and runs::

Til next storytime.
~Queen

Coming up next, in Chapter 24: Darkly-

Aquamarine eyes flicked from one scene to another, assimiliating her choices. On one hand, Uranus was already running after the retreating form of Mimete, drawing out her Space Sword in hopes of taking it down. On the other hand, their new friends faced off against Viluy, who they had already fought, though had not defeated on their own. Sango was mounted on Kirara, the firecat making antagonized sounds towards the daimon-youkai at Viluy's heels. The houshi had brought his shakujyou out of the car as they had run forward, and had it poised for defense.

In the end, there really was no choice.

She turned and ran after Uranus.