Star-Crossed: Destiny Revised

"Rei? Hey, you ok?" asked Kyo, a russet skinned teen with crimson hair. "You fainted on stage again."

The raven-manned rocker looked up from her position on the floor with an ugly frown marring her otherwise beautiful face. She squinted her lavender eyes shut and brought a hand up to massage her forehead.

"Yea, I'm fuckin' peachy," growled the singer as she stumbled her way into an upright position.

"Yea? Well, how bout you tell us what the hell is up? This is the third fuckin' time this week so don't tell me it's all some damn coincidence."

"Yea Rei, I'm with the 'Street-Rat' on this one. I think we all wanna know what's up." said Kyo's best friend and erstwhile rival for the seductive singer's heart, Yuuichirou.

Rei sighed and ran a trembling hand through her hair. She absolutely hated it when they teamed up against her. It always felt so unfair.

"You know," she said with a laugh, "I think I liked you guys better when you were at each other's throats." The guys laughed. Beating the crap out of each other over Rei was one of their few fond memories.

"Yea, I know what you mean. Watchin' out for this lunk-head takes up more time than it's worth!" said Kyo with a smile.

"Che, you act like spendin' time with you is all rainbows and sunshine! If you didn't know all the nice bars out there we wouldn't spend half as much time together!"

Eri, the band's manager breathed out a sigh. Leave it to Kyo and Yuuichirou to get off topic on something as important as Rei's fainting. Sometimes he really had to wonder if they weren't long lost brothers or something with the way they bicker. She could still remember the first time they met, probably because their still try to pay back the owner of the bar they trashed and a few of the 'innocent' bi-standers they injured.

'I swear if they weren't so good at making music…' Eri thought despondently. She sighed once again as she reached over the counter to grab a long neck. Beer had become her best friend since this promotional tour started.

The young manager turned back towards the group in hopes of getting back on track. 'Maybe I should start looking into Valium; being drugged into oblivion sounds pretty damn fine right about now.'

"…And that's the 100th reason you can't get a girl." finished Yuuichirou. The rest of the group simultaneously sweatdropped; Rei just smiled.

"Hey, your getting off topic, guys! We want to know about Rei's fainting, right?"

"Oh, uh, yea…" the dynamic duo answered somewhat sheepishly.

After a few seconds of silence the band looked to Rei for answers. Rei was leaning against one of the dressing rooms lockers contemplating how to tell them about the weird dreams she'd been having for the past two weeks; they had been keeping her up all night and day. They were really eerie and they always started out the same way.

"Mars! Saturn!! Mercury is down! We have to retreat and regroup!" yelled the injured Venus.

"RETREAT?!?! ARE YOU SERIOUS?!!?" the irate miko/Senshi screamed, "TH--they killed her…"

Mars trembled as the tears in her eyes began to fall; she choked back a sob and drew in a fresh breath of air to regain her initiative. Venus turned towards Saturn. She always stayed levelheaded in battle and could probably help talk the mourning senshi into retreating.

Saturn held her gaze firmly on the ground like she ways expecting something to jump out at her at any moment. When the Blonde soldier looked closer she could see the quiet tears streaming down her pale cheeks. Leave it to the Senshi of Silence to grieve in silence…

'Shit, what the hell I'm I going to do? Mars is in Defcon 3 and Saturn's totally unresponsive?'

"Mou, we're screwed if we do and screwed if we don't…" Mercury choked out.

"Well, we need to do something. They're coming back." Jupiter said quietly. She had been so unusually quiet since this whole ideal began that the others almost forgot she was there.

The tangible amount of tension in the area surrounding the five remaining senshi. The fiery spirit, Mars, was standing in a corner glaring into space while Saturn stood stalk-still and gloomy looked towards the ground. Mercury was lying by the last enemy downed holding her broken hip. Venus was in her own little world trying to come up with some battle tactic that wouldn't even work. Their enemy, formless body-stealers, seemed almost impervious to their strongest attacks; the only way to defeat them was to outlast their human host and make them collapse cause of the strain on their body. A tactic that weighed heavily on each one of their hearts. Jupiter just sat in front of the glass door quietly. Every once in awhile you could see her fidget and find a more comfortable position.

It seemed like the end of the Senshi .

"…and she looked just like me!"

Silence. The band and their manager sat dumbly in their seats after Rei's story. What could they say after hearing something like that. The emotion in her voice was so powerful and expressive what else could they be expected to do BUT believe her.

"Whoa, Rei, that sounds pretty intense." Yuuichirou said.

"You've got know idea." Rei replied, " and when I wake up I'm dead tired. Like I was never asleep in the first place."

"That's pretty fucked up," Kyo finally spoke, "but what are you gon' do bout it? I mean, IF you can do anything about it."

Rei frowned. She'd been trying to think about that all week, but unfortunately for her she could only come up with two solutions. One, just wait it out and hope for the best. Which probably would just make things worse for her and the band in the end. Or two, go back to the shrine and see her Jii-san after running away all those years ago. She knew which one she had to chose, but that didn't make it anymore comfortable.

"Well, tomorrow night we arrive in Tokyo right?"

"Yea, sure, but what's that got to do with this?" asked Kyo. He'd only been with the band for a year and an half, so he didn't know much about Rei's past. Something he was perfectly fine with. As long as he didn't pry into their past, they won't find the urge to look into his…

"I need to see Jii-san, he's the head priest of our family shrine, the Hikawa Jinja."

"Family shrine?!" shouted Kyo and Eri. Everyone looked surprised at their normally quiet manager. She shrugged and smiled albeit a little sheepishly.

"Wait, hold up. If the Hikawa Jinja is your family shrine, that makes you a m-"

"Miko." Rei cut off. The former Miko sighed, sinking a bit lower into the sofa she was now sitting on before continuing. "Yea, I was a shrine maiden. Actually I was consider one of the best in Tokyo. I spoke to the sacred fire with ease at an early age. Grandpa was talking about handing the shrine over to me for my sixteenth birthday, but that was before I ran away to pursue a career in singing… We actually haven't talked since."

The band all looked at her in awe. They couldn't believe that Rei use to be a shrine maiden. It just didn't fit with the image of the irate, excess drinking, chain-smoking, bitch of a woman that they all knew and loved. It seemed odd to try and think of her anyway else.

'Miko. Who would have thought?' Yuuichirou shuddered at the thought of a devote, Rei. The idea of her doing ANYTHING for ANYONE for free or altruistic was just plain foreign and pretty damn scary.

"Whoa, so you're a Miko, huh? Well, I guess that superior attitude of yours had to come from somewhere, right?" Kyo joked.

The mood lightened noticeable when Rei jumped up over the table and backhanded the grinning red head with a paper fan.

"Is that all you have to say? They're you last words, you know." Rei growled out, but there was a light of amusement in her eyes.

Everyone stood there for a few seconds before bursting out in an uproarious laughter.

"So, what now?" Eri asked, wiping the tears from her eyes.

"Don't you know?" asked Rei.

"...Um, no."

"Guys why don't you tell her."

Eri looked at the dynamic duo questionably. The red head and the shaggy manned teens thought for a second before jumping up on the table and striking a hilariously, dramatic pose and cried out.

"Onward to Tokyo!"