Author's Note:
The normal disclaimers here of course and that I'm certainly not doing this for money.
There are a few elements that are exclusive to the manga, as you will read, but those only involve character differences than from the anime, such as the Shitennous' relationship. Also, Mamoru has the Golden Crystal.
If you need to contact me, my email is Guardian4@atlantic.net. Please put fanfiction or something in the subject line so I know what you're emailing me about. And if you're a really nice person (if this pertains to a certain fanfiction that I've done) you might want to put the name of the fanfiction you're referring to somewhere in the email.
All names are like the Japanese say them, last name first. So Kunzite's name would be Kail Rainer in America, but in Japanese it would be said Rainer Kail.
Army of Immortals
Chapter 14: Frost At Midnight
Zayn slowly pondered the girl next to him in wonder. He had seen her work, watched her, when she had treated Jayden. She was amazing…no, she was more than amazing. From what she had told him, her mother was a doctor. Ami would surpass her long before she knew it. Her mother might be the greatest doctor in Japan, but she would be the greatest in the world.
"Is there a reason you're gazing at me like that?" she asked.
He blushed, embarrassed being caught staring. "I was just thinking."
She simply nodded. The rest of the walk was quiet, Zayn not really having the nerve to look at her again when she'd caught him once already. Her soft words broke through the silence between them, startling him.
"Well this is it. Thank you for walking me home."
The warrior smiled. "You're entirely welcome. I enjoyed this."
Now she blushed. "So did I."
He opened his mouth, but a screech caught him off guard.
"AMI-CHAN!"
Arms wrapped themselves in a death grip around Ami's neck from behind. Her shocked look nearly made him laugh, as the scene was priceless. Her utterly surprised confusion…then he saw the distraught woman that could only be her mother and his amusement died.
She looked as if she hadn't slept in a week, the dark circles under her eyes looking like first rate bruises, which Zayn knew quite about. He came home bruised black and blue some nights, after particularly nasty fights. Her hands shook so badly that he could see them even from where he stood. Sobs shook her shoulders as her forehead buried itself in the crook of Ami's neck.
"Mother?" Ami breathed, shocked at the condition of her.
"Where have you been? I've been so worried about you! And then there was that story about the kidnapper! I knew you liked going out with your friends to the mall, and I thought the worst! Yesterday they said they had caught the man and I thought you were going to come home and you didn't at all! I didn't know what to think!" She gave up on words and simply wailed into her daughter's shoulder.
Ami's eyes locked with Zayn's in alarm. He couldn't believe how badly their parents might have reacted. The Wisdom Senshi had confided to him that she doubted that her mother had even known she was missing, such was her busy schedule.
"Mother, when have you last slept?" she demanded.
"I don't remember."
"Zayn, would you excuse me? I really have to take care of my mother."
Finally, Ms. Mizuno looked up at him, as if noticing him for the first time. He nodded. "Sure, Ami-chan. I'll see you in a few days, then?"
"Yes. Call me soon. Now, Mother, it's time you went to bed."
Ami's mother continued to stare at him as he backed away and she was led into the house. Zayn closed the gate behind him and thought about how his father would react, knowing how long he was gone. It took but a moment for him to burst into a run toward his house.
He rushed in the door, searching around wildly. His eyes slid past the picture on the hall table, the photo of himself, his mother, and his father. Not even the pang of his mother's death, only two years past, could touch him now, not with his fear for his father. Often he had said that he was the only thing that kept him from joining his wife up in heaven.
"Dad?"
It was like a bull running down the stairs. His father landed heavily on his feet as he jumped down the last few steps and thrust himself on his son. If he hadn't been an Earthen Knight, Zayn thought he might have broken a few ribs as hard as his father hugged him.
"I'm all right, Dad," he whispered.
"I'm so glad. Where have you been?"
Hating himself for what he was going to put his father through, he detailed the account of the kidnapper and inserted himself into the story of kidnapped children. The sheer shock and fear of almost losing him filled his father's face, nearly making him tell he was lying.
"I'm so…so glad that you're alive. I worried to death about you."
Zayn fought the urge to look down in shame. "I'm all right," he repeated. "I'm just a bit tired." It wasn't a lie; he wavered slightly on his feet, drained from the teleportation from the North Pole anomaly point.
His father reacted instantly and picked him up as if he was a child again. He looked up at the near square face. The man would have easily been thought of fathering Neil or Kail, as he 6'3, a contrast to his 5'6 wife and his only slightly taller son.
"You look so much like your mother," he commented softly to him.
"You've told me that before," he responded, smiling, and resting his head on his father's shoulder. He didn't think he could have made it up the stairs without help. As soon as his feet had left the floor, the weight and power he had used up had hit him hard, so he wasn't sure if he could keep his eyes open much longer.
He felt himself being set down in a bed and sighed in relief, curling onto his side.
"Good night, son," he heard his father whisper before the door was shut quietly.
Kail walked next to Mamoru, refraining from saying anything to his airborne friend, in every way except the physical. He knew that Mamoru didn't have to worry about parents; his had died when he was young. The loss of his memory, however, had actually worked for them once they had become a group and the Earthen Knights appeared. It had made him more susceptible to the memories that came.
"Kail, you can go home now. You don't have to walk me to my apartment."
Mamoru's voice jogged his attention. "I know it's not like I have to, I know, but I want to. Because you're my friend. I'm also worried that you'll run into a truck, as you've been on Cloud 9 since we left the Shrine."
The Prince laughed heartily. "I see."
Kail smiled slightly.
"So, what's going on between you and Minako?"
He blushed, something he rarely, if ever, did. Hesitantly, he detailed what had gone on between him and the Soldier of Love. "I know it wasn't right, when you and Usagi were captured, but—"
"That was your first mistake."
"Huh?"
"Just because something happens to me doesn't mean that you're entire life stops," he admonished gently, sounding like the prince he used to be.
"But—"
"No 'buts'. You heard me."
"As you wish, Sire."
As he had intended, Mamoru's lips quirked in a small smile that he fought to suppress. "Off with you, go home. Tell your parents and your sister that you're all right."
"Like my sister would have noticed I was gone," he muttered bitterly.
Mamoru knew as well as he did that things weren't all right at home. Kail's sister, Tomi, spent most of her time away from their house. She was about five years older than him, but often he wondered if, mentally, she wasn't ten years his junior. Her compulsions, which he had doubted she ever denied, ruled her life so much that if she wanted something, she would get it whether or not anyone else approved or whether it was good for her or not.
"Just how badly off is your sister?" Mamoru asked uncertainly.
"Bad enough that I'm the only one that knows that she's gotten three abortions already," he grumbled sadly.
"Three?!"
"Yeah," he whispered. "I'm also not entirely sure she hasn't immersed herself in drugs yet either. I'm worried, Mamoru-kun. I mean, I want to help her, but I never see her. And when I do, she's either spaced out or in such a temper that I don't dare say anything. When she's home, I also can't say anything to her because my parents will find out. I don't know what to do anymore." He sighed. "She wasn't always like this. I remember when I was younger, she used to look out for me. She would play with me all day and help me with my homework when I needed it. I don't know what happened to her, Mamoru."
His friend didn't say anything. Indeed, asked Kail silently, what was there to say? Absolutely nothing.
Mamoru waved goodbye at him as he entered his apartment building. Kail sighed, not really wanting to go home, but knowing he had no other choice.
As soon as he entered the door, his parents pounced on him. "Where have you been?" demanded his father irately.
Before he could open his mouth, a sarcastic voice sounded from the top of the stairs. A voice he knew very well.
"Yes, where were you and why did you leave me all alone with your sister?"
Tomi strode down the stairs and stared into his eyes. They were a bit dazed, as if she had been taking drugs or had been sleeping for hours and just woken up. But deep in them, there was a relief, a feeling of his older sister again and not this stranger he didn't know anymore.
In seconds it was gone and the derision was back again.
"Silence," retorted his father angrily. With a glare, she bit her tongue and wisely kept her thoughts to herself.
Kail, with a weary inward sigh, explained the ruse that they had come up with, though with no embellishment on his part. Immediately, his mother went into hysterics and hugged him, crying on his shoulder. His father nodded and commented proudly, "Gave the kidnapper the time of his life I'll bet; made his life miserable, didn't you? That's my son."
Only Tomi didn't seem to buy it. She stared at him skeptically and jogged back up the stairs to her room. Overcome with a strange urge to talk to his sister, he excused himself from his mother and followed her.
"What do you want?" she snapped as she flopped onto her bed and flipped on the TV she had managed to con out of his father to putting in her room.
He closed the door behind him. At first, he didn't know quite what to say. What did he have in common with this stranger that was supposed to be his sister? "Tomi, are you…"
"That was the lamest excuse I've ever heard in my life," she commented in scorn, her eyes never leaving the screen. "And I've thrown a few in my life. So where were you, really?"
Kail hesitated.
"Come on, I won't tell them."
"I…" How could he tell her that he'd been in jail, broke out, and then traveled to the North Pole to do battle against an Evil Queen that had captured his Prince, the man he had sworn to lay his life down for?
She looked at him and took in his expression. Her eyes widened and she bolted upright in bed. "You were in jail, weren't you?"
He managed to nod. She crowed, whether in amusement or triumph, he wasn't sure. "I knew it! Hey, did you see those 'Warriors for Love and Justice'? What a scam! They're even fuller of it than I am. Fight to save the Earth? Puh-lease!"
"You think they should have been convicted then?"
"Hell no! I'm just glad those guys, these supposedly supernatural people, finally got off their asses and took down the police a peg or two. They need to be shown that they don't rule people."
"But Tomi, they're the police. They protect the people of Japan—"
"Oh, get off your high horse, Kail," she told him rudely. "You were in jail and you really believe that shit?" He winced at her language. "So, what were you in jail for?"
He was growing really angry at her, attested by his balled fists. It was probably most likely aftereffects of spending so much power to teleport and the emotional stress. His mouth opened and he spat, "Damn it, Tomi, who the hell are you? You're not my sister anymore and I want to know who replaced her!"
She jumped to her feet in a nanosecond. Her fist came up and headed straight for his face.
He wasn't in the least expecting it, though in retrospect he figured he should have. It connected and tossed him back against the wall. She had more punch to her fist than he would have thought possible.
"Shut up, Kail. Who are you, anyway? You want to ask that, then think about yourself first. You're not the little brother that I grew up with either. Look at those pathetic grades! You used to get straight A's, and now its only A's and B's. You used to be such a goody-goody guy. Now you're changed and not for the better. You're a complete wimp! You can't even dodge a single punch, you're lost any backbone you used to have, and the one good thing about you, your brains, have obviously died. And you have the nerve to say that I've changed?!"
With quiet dignity, he straightened and looked her straight in the eye. "I'm the same brother you grew up with. Perhaps if you bothered to notice, you would know that."
Drawing his pride and carefully veiled hurt around him like a steel cloak, he left her room silently so she wouldn't see his tears.
End Chapter 14