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1 Chapter 16 – Wait Till Mom Hears About This
***
"I can't believe this. Not one document looks suspicious at all! We've searched Khalidah, Tomoe, and Chiba...nothing!"
Michiru turned around and looked at her partner. She was seated in front of the archival computer in the main room of the American division of the archives. The archives were in a huge building that was affiliated with, but not connected to, the hospital. Amazing for such a large system, the archives were all updated and kept nice and neat by Ami and her millions of hospital workers. However, the archives were so extensive that each country had their own division, including a main room with a mainframe computer to sort each country's archives and millions of hard copies.
"So perhaps her birth records were destroyed, hidden...whatever!" said Michiru, sighing gently and throwing a file. There were other Chibas that were born in America, but there were sixteen of them and none of them had anything suspicious going on. Ten of them were boys, and four of the six girls were American-mix. Two of the girls could have been Aiyana, but one of them was too young, and the other had lung cancer.
"We have to go back to tell Ami that we haven't found anything yet," Haruka said, shutting down the computer. "Maybe she's found something with that blood sample she managed to get from King Endymion."
***
"So you see, everything's going pretty all right...till Mom starts asking me some dumb questions. And she knows I'm not going to answer them, so of course we get into an argument. Then Emi starts making this crack..."
Aiyana smiled faintly at Masaya's story. He was laying on his back on the hospital bed, and Aiyana was sitting in the chair, watching him – a welcome change from the usual other-way-around. Masaya had his hands behind his head, supporting it, and his blue-gray eyes were closed. His body was stretched across the bed, his long legs nearly hanging off the end of it. He looked like a big boy.
Aiyana giggled when the image of a younger Masaya popped into her head – running around a kindergarten room, driving his teacher crazy, and doing the same when younger with his mother. From his description of his home life – which he had been entertaining her with today – it seemed like he was still driving his mother crazy. She wondered vaguely if Masaya looked anything like his father. He didn't seem to look like his mother, except for a little bit in his eyes.
"Are you even listening to me anymore?" Masaya asked, and chuckled a little. "I admit, my home life can get a little boring at times."
"No, that's not it," said Aiyana. "I was just thinking. I'm sorry if I looked a little distant."
"It's okay," Masaya said, waving his hand as if Aiyana's inattentiveness was of little consequence. "Don't even worry about it." He opened his eyes and found them drifting towards her lips, and immediately closed them. That was the reason he had closed his eyes in the first place. The first time they had positioned themselves there, he had found himself wondering, 'Would she kiss me again?'
"What were you thinking about?" he asked her, to change the subject.
"...Children, I guess," Aiyana said, after pausing to think of an excuse without lying. "I wonder what my child will be like. Will it be a girl or a boy? Or—" Aiyana gulped, thinking of Ami's children. "Twins?"
"You're not really big enough for twins," Masaya laughed, seeing Aiyana's trouble face. "But they do have several methods of determining your child's sex. Some are infallible, some are not. Would you like to take a test and find out what your child is?"
Aiyana considered it, then smiled faintly. "No. I'd prefer to be surprised."
Masaya's face broke into an even wider grin, then felt his spirits fall as he thought of something else Aiyana should know. "Aiyana," he said, sitting up on the bed, "there's something I have to tell you. Did Ami ever say anything to you about adoption?"
Aiyana frowned, seeing the concern on Masaya's face. "Adoption? No."
"Well...whenever we have unwed mothers in here – which isn't often – we're required to discuss alternatives with them. And since we've already went over abortion, although it's too late to obtain an abortion now, we have to talk to you about the possibility of adoption."
"What would that entail?"
"Well," Masaya said, "You would have to sign your rights for your child over to another family. They would become the child's legal guardians, and care for it as it grew."
Aiyana remained silent for a few moments, piercing Masaya through with her deep blue eyes. The she said, a thoughtful look on her face, "What would be the pros and cons of doing that?"
Masaya took a deep breath. "Your child would probably be more secure with another family. I don't like to say this, Aiyana, but...we honestly don't know what's going to happen to you in the next few months. Once you have your child...people will begin to find things out, and they'll know. And Ami can't keep your condition concealed forever. She's under tremendous pressure right now, trying to keep that secret. This way, your baby would have a stable family, would have everything it needed – financially, materially, and in the way of attention.
"However, no one forms a bond with a child like a mother does, and your child would always feel a sense of emptiness inside itself. If his or her parents told her about the adoption, he or she would always wonder. Then there is the issue of...breast-feeding." Masaya colored a little, but continued. "It's the best thing for a child, and your child wouldn't have the benefit of that. Besides, it might be pretty hard to place your child with a family."
Aiyana looked down, and Masaya knew he had said something wrong.
"What?" he asked gently.
"That's just it," said Aiyana. "It'd be pretty hard to place the child. Who'd want it? Who would want her besides me?" Her eyes filled with tears. "No one wanted me. Why would anyone want my offspring?" She buried her face in her hands. "I know that emptiness. That feeling that something's missing...the knowledge that someone gave you up, didn't want you, didn't need you." She buried her face in her hands, sobbing softly.
Masaya took the troubled young woman into his arms. Kissing her forehead softly, he drew her closer, rocking her gently as he listened to her cry.
***
"Masaya? Can I please ask what's going on?"
"Shh. She's asleep," Masaya said, looking up from behind the thick curtain Aiyana's hair provided. It was soft and silky and smelled like roses – just like her skin. He'd been laying on it, half-asleep himself and hypnotized by the softness and fragrance of her, until Ami had walked in a few moments earlier and assumed the most perturbed face Masaya had ever seen her have on her face.
"I can see that." Ami shifted her weight to her other leg and placed her hand on her hip. Looking back up at the door, Masaya saw Michiru and Haruka waiting just outside of it. They were peering in, and both of them looked a little amused.
Masaya reddened with embarrassment and gently lay the girl's body down on the bed, then rose. "I asked her about adoption," he said softly, so only Ami could hear him. "She started crying and then she fell asleep. I didn't do anything to her," he said quickly.
"I don't believe you could find it in your heart to," Ami said back, just as softly. She nodded at Masaya, and he exited, shooting one quick look back at Aiyana as he left.
"So what are we going to do now?" Michiru said quietly as the three adults filed into the room.
"She's asleep. There's not much we can do." Haruka looked down at the sleeping girl. "I can only imagine what that conversation was like." She cocked an eyebrow at Ami.
"This hospital holds a policy to all unwed mothers," said Ami. "We're required to run through alternatives to raising a child single-handedly, including an abortion and adoption. We space them out so as not to shock the person too much, and I suppose that's what Masaya was telling her. He was probably telling her about the cons when she realized that her predicament was a lot like being adopted, and started crying, then fell asleep."
"You're quite insightful," said Michiru, staring at the sleeping form on the bed. "So how do we tell her that we didn't find anything in the archives and you don't even know if the paternity test will work?"
"I *told* you paternity tests are kind of outdated here," Ami said, her whisper fierce.
"So outdated that you can't even find the formula to it?"
"No," said Ami, taking the seat where Aiyana had been seated until Masaya put her on the bed. She sighed heavily. "I can devise a simple test from the current pregnancy test using some applications from med school and pure luck, but it might not be very accurate at first until I develop it a little bit."
"So do that," said Haruka. "In the meantime, Michiru and I are going archive-hunting again." She narrowed her eyes at the younger doctor. "We'll get this thing straightened out if we have to tear apart the world trying to."
***
"Shimatta."
Kunzite's smokey grey eyes followed the small black blip across the liquid- crystal display screen in the computer room. Sailorvenus was standing behind him, also watching the blip. Zoisite, in Mercury's absence, was off to the side, typing in some schematics or something or other into the computer. The other three Senshi and two generals were sitting in chairs in the computer room, basically waiting.
"What?" asked Sailorvenus, perking her head up to stare at the computer screen. "Oh, hell!"
Kunzite remained considerably calmer than his wife, who leaned in closer to the computer screen. "Let me take a look at that...my god! That thing is coming in fast. No inhibitions about it."
"It will arrive in about three weeks – and that's only if it's speed doesn't accelerate, as the trend seems to be," Zoisite said softly. "That's also if it truly is headed towards us. Unless it's going to probe another planet or whatever. In any event, it's entering our solar system directly outside the orbit of Uranus by tonight. By tomorrow morning it'll be dodging asteroids in the rings."
Nephrite slowly shook his head. "It's phenomenal," she said. "The travel speed is phenomenal! It's going faster than the speed of sound. Nowhere near light-speed, but at least it's over the speed of sound! It's amazing. And with such a sleek design—"
"Oh, who gives a damn," Sailorjupiter said in an irritated voice. "It's fast, it's coming for us. That's all I care about."
"I have to agree with Jupiter on that one," said Sailormars, chuckling a little.
"So what are we going to do?"
"Perhaps we should deploy a fleet up there," said Jadeite. "Kind of watch it's progress. If it really is coming towards the planet, then we can have someone stationed up there to ward them off. If not, then they can just make sure they bypass Earth completely."
"Maybe that's a pretty good idea," said Zoisite, "and maybe it isn't. It just might provoke them to see a fleet up there, whereas before they were just going to keep on flying."
"It's our best bet towards protection, though," Kunzite said, turning around to the company before him. "It would be wise to send someone up there to monitor the activity of this thing. We should have about four ships up there for three weeks; that should be enough to ward them off if they are hostile." He turned to Nephrite. "Round up three Air Force regiments and tell them the situation. We can meet in the war room of the palace to instruct them. Right now we have to sort out the siege's stipulations." He turned to his wife, Jadeite, and Mars. "Can you all help me do that?"
The three of them nodded.
"Let's go, then."
***
"What a witch!" Chiba Tsukino Usagi, otherwise known as Princess Usagi Small Lady Selenity, leaned forward towards Izumi. "And you mean that she completely just the whole weekend knew what she was doing the whole time?!"
"Of course she did," said Izumi indignantly. "She watched me the whole time like a hawk. Once she figured that I liked Masaya, she decided to strike. She hated me from the beginning, that busu."
Koikokoro Emi closed her eyes in a gesture of exasperation. "The profanity is *not* called for, Izumi-chan," she said calmly.
Izumi, Usa, and Kogasunasu Hitomi turned to Emi. The five girls – Hayashino Megami was also present -- were congregated in Usa's extremely large and extremely pink room in the palace. The door was tightly locked and closed, and the four of them were gossiping when Izumi brought up the subject of Masaya and Aiyana.
Rather, Izumi, Usa, and Hitomi were gossiping. Megami and Emi pretty much the only one of the girls who never liked to talk about other people or gossip pointlessly about recent goings-ons. Megami was an athletic, tomboyish sort, and she didn't like discussing all that; Emi was quiet and studious and didn't get involved in gossip.
But even though she wasn't a gossip, Izumi had pledged that she knew a lot about the assassin, and Megami was eager to find out what her parents had been whispering about, and what Teruo had been questioning Masaya about over the phone. He hadn't had much luck with the conversations, but Megami wanted to rub it in his face that she knew more about the source of his interest than he did. Emi just didn't want to be alone in her house, her older brother at the hospital and her parents off in the palace's workrooms.
"Whatever," Izumi said, tossing her head so that her blue hair shook around it. "I just know she knew what she was doing. She's crafty; that's why she's an assassin."
"I'd hate to have had her babysit me," said Usa. Izumi had no qualms with letting every one of her friends know that she had a crush on Masaya, and only part of it was defending her turf. But now it didn't seem as if she had to defend him from anyone.
"Did it ever occur to you guys that maybe she really likes Masaya-san?" Megami asked, laying against one of Usa's fuzzy pink pillows. "I mean, she's only a few years older than us. It's possible for her to have a crush."
"She's an assassin. She doesn't have feelings like that. All she can know is hate and the drive to kill."
"Usa, you sound like something out of a bad monster movie," said Megami, laughing and throwing one of Usa's other pillows at her. "She's human, so she can feel, you know?"
"And you guys sound more heartless than she does," Emi said, clutching a plushie Sailormoon doll close to her. "You're dressing her as if she were some kind of beast or something. I heard Masaya say she was really pretty."
Izumi's eyes widened, then she sat back against the headboard of Usa's bed and sulked.
"What does she look like?" Hitomi asked, turning to Izumi.
"She's got blue eyes and dark violet hair," Izumi said, "nothing really special."
"She's really tall, and her eyes are very luminous," Emi said. "That's what Masaya said. He said she's really pretty, kind of exotic in a way. And yet, still familiar." Emi smiled. "That sounds so sweet. He sounded like he was really interested in her hard."
Izumi shook her head. "Just admiring a pretty face, that's all. She's pregnant, too, and you know he loves children."
"Pregnant?!"
Izumi's eyes widened, then narrowed as she smiled devilishly. She'd forgotten that the girls didn't know that Aiyana was pregnant. And, if she deduced correctly from Masaya's unwitting hints, she wasn't sure if their mothers knew.
"Hai, pregnant," she said nonchalantly. "You guys didn't know? I mean, it's pretty obvious that she is. Her stomach's really big and round, and she looks really, really pregnant. About five months, last time I saw; she's got to be about six now."
The other four girls turned to each other, eyes widened by the excitement of being in the know. The same thought was undoubtedly on each of their minds: *Wait till Mom hears about this!*
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------
AN: Whoa...this chapter took a long time to get out. My father broke the disk drive in the computer (although he profusely denies it, my brother saw him do it) and I couldn't transfer the rest of the story information over to this computer from mine. So I had to start this chapter over. I actually like this chapter better than the previous outlay.
If you have any questions, email them to me: julymoonbunny@hotmail.com
1 Chapter 16 – Wait Till Mom Hears About This
***
"I can't believe this. Not one document looks suspicious at all! We've searched Khalidah, Tomoe, and Chiba...nothing!"
Michiru turned around and looked at her partner. She was seated in front of the archival computer in the main room of the American division of the archives. The archives were in a huge building that was affiliated with, but not connected to, the hospital. Amazing for such a large system, the archives were all updated and kept nice and neat by Ami and her millions of hospital workers. However, the archives were so extensive that each country had their own division, including a main room with a mainframe computer to sort each country's archives and millions of hard copies.
"So perhaps her birth records were destroyed, hidden...whatever!" said Michiru, sighing gently and throwing a file. There were other Chibas that were born in America, but there were sixteen of them and none of them had anything suspicious going on. Ten of them were boys, and four of the six girls were American-mix. Two of the girls could have been Aiyana, but one of them was too young, and the other had lung cancer.
"We have to go back to tell Ami that we haven't found anything yet," Haruka said, shutting down the computer. "Maybe she's found something with that blood sample she managed to get from King Endymion."
***
"So you see, everything's going pretty all right...till Mom starts asking me some dumb questions. And she knows I'm not going to answer them, so of course we get into an argument. Then Emi starts making this crack..."
Aiyana smiled faintly at Masaya's story. He was laying on his back on the hospital bed, and Aiyana was sitting in the chair, watching him – a welcome change from the usual other-way-around. Masaya had his hands behind his head, supporting it, and his blue-gray eyes were closed. His body was stretched across the bed, his long legs nearly hanging off the end of it. He looked like a big boy.
Aiyana giggled when the image of a younger Masaya popped into her head – running around a kindergarten room, driving his teacher crazy, and doing the same when younger with his mother. From his description of his home life – which he had been entertaining her with today – it seemed like he was still driving his mother crazy. She wondered vaguely if Masaya looked anything like his father. He didn't seem to look like his mother, except for a little bit in his eyes.
"Are you even listening to me anymore?" Masaya asked, and chuckled a little. "I admit, my home life can get a little boring at times."
"No, that's not it," said Aiyana. "I was just thinking. I'm sorry if I looked a little distant."
"It's okay," Masaya said, waving his hand as if Aiyana's inattentiveness was of little consequence. "Don't even worry about it." He opened his eyes and found them drifting towards her lips, and immediately closed them. That was the reason he had closed his eyes in the first place. The first time they had positioned themselves there, he had found himself wondering, 'Would she kiss me again?'
"What were you thinking about?" he asked her, to change the subject.
"...Children, I guess," Aiyana said, after pausing to think of an excuse without lying. "I wonder what my child will be like. Will it be a girl or a boy? Or—" Aiyana gulped, thinking of Ami's children. "Twins?"
"You're not really big enough for twins," Masaya laughed, seeing Aiyana's trouble face. "But they do have several methods of determining your child's sex. Some are infallible, some are not. Would you like to take a test and find out what your child is?"
Aiyana considered it, then smiled faintly. "No. I'd prefer to be surprised."
Masaya's face broke into an even wider grin, then felt his spirits fall as he thought of something else Aiyana should know. "Aiyana," he said, sitting up on the bed, "there's something I have to tell you. Did Ami ever say anything to you about adoption?"
Aiyana frowned, seeing the concern on Masaya's face. "Adoption? No."
"Well...whenever we have unwed mothers in here – which isn't often – we're required to discuss alternatives with them. And since we've already went over abortion, although it's too late to obtain an abortion now, we have to talk to you about the possibility of adoption."
"What would that entail?"
"Well," Masaya said, "You would have to sign your rights for your child over to another family. They would become the child's legal guardians, and care for it as it grew."
Aiyana remained silent for a few moments, piercing Masaya through with her deep blue eyes. The she said, a thoughtful look on her face, "What would be the pros and cons of doing that?"
Masaya took a deep breath. "Your child would probably be more secure with another family. I don't like to say this, Aiyana, but...we honestly don't know what's going to happen to you in the next few months. Once you have your child...people will begin to find things out, and they'll know. And Ami can't keep your condition concealed forever. She's under tremendous pressure right now, trying to keep that secret. This way, your baby would have a stable family, would have everything it needed – financially, materially, and in the way of attention.
"However, no one forms a bond with a child like a mother does, and your child would always feel a sense of emptiness inside itself. If his or her parents told her about the adoption, he or she would always wonder. Then there is the issue of...breast-feeding." Masaya colored a little, but continued. "It's the best thing for a child, and your child wouldn't have the benefit of that. Besides, it might be pretty hard to place your child with a family."
Aiyana looked down, and Masaya knew he had said something wrong.
"What?" he asked gently.
"That's just it," said Aiyana. "It'd be pretty hard to place the child. Who'd want it? Who would want her besides me?" Her eyes filled with tears. "No one wanted me. Why would anyone want my offspring?" She buried her face in her hands. "I know that emptiness. That feeling that something's missing...the knowledge that someone gave you up, didn't want you, didn't need you." She buried her face in her hands, sobbing softly.
Masaya took the troubled young woman into his arms. Kissing her forehead softly, he drew her closer, rocking her gently as he listened to her cry.
***
"Masaya? Can I please ask what's going on?"
"Shh. She's asleep," Masaya said, looking up from behind the thick curtain Aiyana's hair provided. It was soft and silky and smelled like roses – just like her skin. He'd been laying on it, half-asleep himself and hypnotized by the softness and fragrance of her, until Ami had walked in a few moments earlier and assumed the most perturbed face Masaya had ever seen her have on her face.
"I can see that." Ami shifted her weight to her other leg and placed her hand on her hip. Looking back up at the door, Masaya saw Michiru and Haruka waiting just outside of it. They were peering in, and both of them looked a little amused.
Masaya reddened with embarrassment and gently lay the girl's body down on the bed, then rose. "I asked her about adoption," he said softly, so only Ami could hear him. "She started crying and then she fell asleep. I didn't do anything to her," he said quickly.
"I don't believe you could find it in your heart to," Ami said back, just as softly. She nodded at Masaya, and he exited, shooting one quick look back at Aiyana as he left.
"So what are we going to do now?" Michiru said quietly as the three adults filed into the room.
"She's asleep. There's not much we can do." Haruka looked down at the sleeping girl. "I can only imagine what that conversation was like." She cocked an eyebrow at Ami.
"This hospital holds a policy to all unwed mothers," said Ami. "We're required to run through alternatives to raising a child single-handedly, including an abortion and adoption. We space them out so as not to shock the person too much, and I suppose that's what Masaya was telling her. He was probably telling her about the cons when she realized that her predicament was a lot like being adopted, and started crying, then fell asleep."
"You're quite insightful," said Michiru, staring at the sleeping form on the bed. "So how do we tell her that we didn't find anything in the archives and you don't even know if the paternity test will work?"
"I *told* you paternity tests are kind of outdated here," Ami said, her whisper fierce.
"So outdated that you can't even find the formula to it?"
"No," said Ami, taking the seat where Aiyana had been seated until Masaya put her on the bed. She sighed heavily. "I can devise a simple test from the current pregnancy test using some applications from med school and pure luck, but it might not be very accurate at first until I develop it a little bit."
"So do that," said Haruka. "In the meantime, Michiru and I are going archive-hunting again." She narrowed her eyes at the younger doctor. "We'll get this thing straightened out if we have to tear apart the world trying to."
***
"Shimatta."
Kunzite's smokey grey eyes followed the small black blip across the liquid- crystal display screen in the computer room. Sailorvenus was standing behind him, also watching the blip. Zoisite, in Mercury's absence, was off to the side, typing in some schematics or something or other into the computer. The other three Senshi and two generals were sitting in chairs in the computer room, basically waiting.
"What?" asked Sailorvenus, perking her head up to stare at the computer screen. "Oh, hell!"
Kunzite remained considerably calmer than his wife, who leaned in closer to the computer screen. "Let me take a look at that...my god! That thing is coming in fast. No inhibitions about it."
"It will arrive in about three weeks – and that's only if it's speed doesn't accelerate, as the trend seems to be," Zoisite said softly. "That's also if it truly is headed towards us. Unless it's going to probe another planet or whatever. In any event, it's entering our solar system directly outside the orbit of Uranus by tonight. By tomorrow morning it'll be dodging asteroids in the rings."
Nephrite slowly shook his head. "It's phenomenal," she said. "The travel speed is phenomenal! It's going faster than the speed of sound. Nowhere near light-speed, but at least it's over the speed of sound! It's amazing. And with such a sleek design—"
"Oh, who gives a damn," Sailorjupiter said in an irritated voice. "It's fast, it's coming for us. That's all I care about."
"I have to agree with Jupiter on that one," said Sailormars, chuckling a little.
"So what are we going to do?"
"Perhaps we should deploy a fleet up there," said Jadeite. "Kind of watch it's progress. If it really is coming towards the planet, then we can have someone stationed up there to ward them off. If not, then they can just make sure they bypass Earth completely."
"Maybe that's a pretty good idea," said Zoisite, "and maybe it isn't. It just might provoke them to see a fleet up there, whereas before they were just going to keep on flying."
"It's our best bet towards protection, though," Kunzite said, turning around to the company before him. "It would be wise to send someone up there to monitor the activity of this thing. We should have about four ships up there for three weeks; that should be enough to ward them off if they are hostile." He turned to Nephrite. "Round up three Air Force regiments and tell them the situation. We can meet in the war room of the palace to instruct them. Right now we have to sort out the siege's stipulations." He turned to his wife, Jadeite, and Mars. "Can you all help me do that?"
The three of them nodded.
"Let's go, then."
***
"What a witch!" Chiba Tsukino Usagi, otherwise known as Princess Usagi Small Lady Selenity, leaned forward towards Izumi. "And you mean that she completely just the whole weekend knew what she was doing the whole time?!"
"Of course she did," said Izumi indignantly. "She watched me the whole time like a hawk. Once she figured that I liked Masaya, she decided to strike. She hated me from the beginning, that busu."
Koikokoro Emi closed her eyes in a gesture of exasperation. "The profanity is *not* called for, Izumi-chan," she said calmly.
Izumi, Usa, and Kogasunasu Hitomi turned to Emi. The five girls – Hayashino Megami was also present -- were congregated in Usa's extremely large and extremely pink room in the palace. The door was tightly locked and closed, and the four of them were gossiping when Izumi brought up the subject of Masaya and Aiyana.
Rather, Izumi, Usa, and Hitomi were gossiping. Megami and Emi pretty much the only one of the girls who never liked to talk about other people or gossip pointlessly about recent goings-ons. Megami was an athletic, tomboyish sort, and she didn't like discussing all that; Emi was quiet and studious and didn't get involved in gossip.
But even though she wasn't a gossip, Izumi had pledged that she knew a lot about the assassin, and Megami was eager to find out what her parents had been whispering about, and what Teruo had been questioning Masaya about over the phone. He hadn't had much luck with the conversations, but Megami wanted to rub it in his face that she knew more about the source of his interest than he did. Emi just didn't want to be alone in her house, her older brother at the hospital and her parents off in the palace's workrooms.
"Whatever," Izumi said, tossing her head so that her blue hair shook around it. "I just know she knew what she was doing. She's crafty; that's why she's an assassin."
"I'd hate to have had her babysit me," said Usa. Izumi had no qualms with letting every one of her friends know that she had a crush on Masaya, and only part of it was defending her turf. But now it didn't seem as if she had to defend him from anyone.
"Did it ever occur to you guys that maybe she really likes Masaya-san?" Megami asked, laying against one of Usa's fuzzy pink pillows. "I mean, she's only a few years older than us. It's possible for her to have a crush."
"She's an assassin. She doesn't have feelings like that. All she can know is hate and the drive to kill."
"Usa, you sound like something out of a bad monster movie," said Megami, laughing and throwing one of Usa's other pillows at her. "She's human, so she can feel, you know?"
"And you guys sound more heartless than she does," Emi said, clutching a plushie Sailormoon doll close to her. "You're dressing her as if she were some kind of beast or something. I heard Masaya say she was really pretty."
Izumi's eyes widened, then she sat back against the headboard of Usa's bed and sulked.
"What does she look like?" Hitomi asked, turning to Izumi.
"She's got blue eyes and dark violet hair," Izumi said, "nothing really special."
"She's really tall, and her eyes are very luminous," Emi said. "That's what Masaya said. He said she's really pretty, kind of exotic in a way. And yet, still familiar." Emi smiled. "That sounds so sweet. He sounded like he was really interested in her hard."
Izumi shook her head. "Just admiring a pretty face, that's all. She's pregnant, too, and you know he loves children."
"Pregnant?!"
Izumi's eyes widened, then narrowed as she smiled devilishly. She'd forgotten that the girls didn't know that Aiyana was pregnant. And, if she deduced correctly from Masaya's unwitting hints, she wasn't sure if their mothers knew.
"Hai, pregnant," she said nonchalantly. "You guys didn't know? I mean, it's pretty obvious that she is. Her stomach's really big and round, and she looks really, really pregnant. About five months, last time I saw; she's got to be about six now."
The other four girls turned to each other, eyes widened by the excitement of being in the know. The same thought was undoubtedly on each of their minds: *Wait till Mom hears about this!*
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AN: Whoa...this chapter took a long time to get out. My father broke the disk drive in the computer (although he profusely denies it, my brother saw him do it) and I couldn't transfer the rest of the story information over to this computer from mine. So I had to start this chapter over. I actually like this chapter better than the previous outlay.
If you have any questions, email them to me: julymoonbunny@hotmail.com