Title : Wipe Out
Fandom : Sailor Moon (anime) Dark Kingdom
Pairing : Kunzite / Zoisite
Rating : a bit of violence and hints of sex
Copyright : Zoisite, Kunzite, Sailor Moon and the rest are the property of Naoko Takeuchi and Toei Animation, if I recall.
Author's notes : this chapter was quite funny to write. And it's a lot lighter than what I use to write, I find (which also means that I write more of it...).
Chapter 3 : Instruction
The day after, I wake up hoping it was just a nightmare. But it's true.
Lord Kunzite is already up and ready, and he must be rested because he added a table and chairs to the furniture. He's sitting there by the table and removing his plasters. He seems too absorbed by such a pointless task. I guess he's worried now about his decision from yesterday.
Queen Beryl... From the few he told me about her, what I saw of her decisions, and her fury last night... She's not someone you want to have for enemy. Not someone I'd have liked for ally, actually. Even less someone who forgives. So going back and apologizing is not an option.
I doubt Lord Kunzite would apologize for anything, anyway. He's too proud. And he shouldn't have to apologize. Whatever he did, he had good reasons. He certainly had.
I get up and he turns his head to me. After a few seconds, he gives me a pale smile.
"Ohayou. How do you feel?"
Err...
Physically, I realize that I don't have any after-effects from whatever happened yesterday. But other than that? Still perplexed by him, and wishing that we were back to a more familiar world.
"I feel fine."
"Good. I arranged a bathroom in the basement. There are clothes for you there that will be more suitable for today's schedule."
I nod and follow the direction he showed. The wood floor in the corridor changes into a stone stair going under into a dark room.
The "bathroom" is the Dark Kingdom version of the name, like the one I saw once when Lord Kunzite brought me to his domain, on the way to his report to Metallia, after Tanzanite's death. A cave of raw walls, with a black river running along a wall and forming a pool near me.
I sigh. I'm not that fond of the Dark Kingdom, for what I've seen of it. It's damp, dark, sometimes cold and sometimes unpleasantly soaky, and most of times ugly. But I figure that Lord Kunzite likes to have familiar sights around.
I bathe and wash my hair. When I finally take a look at the clothes that he set aside for me, I stare in doubt.
I wrap myself into one of the big towels and go up the stairs with the clothes in my arms.
"Lord Kunzite?"
He had closed his eyes and snaps them open when he hears me.
"Hai?"
I notice he got changed already. He wears the same kind of dark blue trousers he gave me, black tight fabric under a rather formless leather jacket. All have as strange a cut as the ones I carry.
"Are you sure these clothes are suitable? They don't look like soldier's clothes. What's today's schedule?"
He watches me for a long moment as if he didn't hear my question, and I start wondering what he's looking at. Finally he says.
"You've got to get used to that world. We'll do some sight-seeing. And we should go unnoticed. This is what boys your age are wearing these days."
Boys my age must have a bad taste, I think, but I dare not say it out loud. I nod and go back down to get dressed. I shouldn't feel the need to that amount of modesty, it's not like if he cared in one way or another, but his presence always makes me nervous and I'd rather avoid to be in a more vulnerable state than he already makes me just by existing.
There are the same kind of trousers as Lord Kunzite, of a lighter shade, and the oddly cut shirt with the shortest sleeves I've ever seen, in a very pale green. Instead of boots, I get strange shoes made of patches of leather and fabric of various shades of gray, with a supple sole. It looks weird but it turns out to be very comfortable.
I don't feel very dressed, even after putting up the short jacket on top of it. I just hope I haven't put something upside down. I go back to the first floor where Lord Kunzite is waiting for me.
He doesn't look as out-of-this-world in these clothes. Except for his hands.
I offer to renew the plasters and we sit in silence while I do that. His skin is getting smoother with the balm. It's still dark brown, though.
When I finish, he puts up new white gloves to cover the damages.
My stomach wakes up, too, and growls to remind me of its existence.
"Uh, Lord Kunzite, can we eat something?"
"We will eat outside."
I sigh again and go by his side. I expect him to teleport us, but instead we just stroll outside.
We walk down to the bottom of the hill, where a gray road leads to the town. Lord Kunzite comments everything to me on the way. Cars, people's clothes, road signs.
It all looks to me like my few visits in the Dark Kingdom. Alien and too many new things to sink in.
He makes us sit in a kind of restaurant where chairs are made of that shiny matter that he called plastic. He orders for us both, and while the waitress is gone he warns me that this is foreign food, but that it's fairly common now.
She brings a small cup of black drink for him, that he later describes to me as "a stronger tea". I get a bigger cup of what he calls hot chocolate. I ask him why he didn't order the same thing for me, and he looks slightly taken aback.
"It just seemed to be the right choice to do. But you can taste my coffee if you want. We're here to experiment after all."
I look down into my chocolate and blush, cursing myself for being so damn sensitive to that. I'm not a child anymore, why should I care? But, sharing a drink with my war Lord? Uh, that is really weird. The Lord Kunzite I knew wouldn't do that.
It occurs to me suddenly that there must have been a lot of time passing for him while I was sealed asleep by the Ginzuishou. He changed too much... Though physically, he's exactly the same.
I wonder how old he is. How many years he lived before we met, and how many years passed between the Dark Kingdom fall and awakening.
I ask him to avoid the coffee question.
He seems to be more embarrassed by that. Finally he replies, thoughtfully.
"About three years passed between your last memories and the last attack against the Moon Kingdom. It was three centuries before our seals were broken loose, but only those of the Tennou and Queen Beryl. A lot of youma remained sealed, as well as Queen Metallia."
"What about the soldiers?"
Another pause.
"I don't know. I figure they disbanded without us to lead them."
I look up to him, surprised.
"Weren't they sealed like me?"
A very long pause this time. When I think he's not going to reply at all, he utters carefully.
"I guess you were affected because you were in the Dark Kingdom at the time, while the other ones were on Earth."
It's only then that I realize something doesn't fit.
"You mean... How come there's been three years between my last memories and the last attack, if the Ginzuishou sealed the Dark Kingdom into sleep only then?"
He straightens, his eyes reduced to a slid, and clenches his gloved hand around his cup. I'm reminded suddenly that even though he now looks pretty casual, he's still a Tennou, and my Lord. There are things I'm not allowed to question.
I give up and bow.
"Gomen."
He relaxes a little, and pushes the plate towards me.
"You should taste the pastries. That's what we're here for after all, and you said you were hungry."
I accept the diversion and carefully bites into one. It's unusual but tasty, and I soon finish it and start another one hungrily. I rinse it down with chocolate, that turns up being the sweetest and richest drink I ever had.
I stop halfway, my mouth full, when I realize that Lord Kunzite is watching me with an amused smile on his face.
I hurry to swallow and try to make a decent face, apologizing.
"Why do you apologize?" he asks.
"Uh, I don't know, why do you smile? Did I do something funny?"
His smile fades a little.
"No. I was just thinking that you would get used to this time after all."
I don't know what to answer that and just shrug.
"How long did it take you to get used to it, when you awakened?"
He looks outside through the window and muses.
"It was different... The powers that I inherited from Queen Metallia allow me to tune myself to a time. So I don't have to learn all of it one little detail at a time. I can scan the place and get a global view of things. And learn languages and other daily things with a mind-transfer spell."
That sounds a lot less mind boggling than my own adaptation. I wish I had similar powers. But that is wishful thinking.
"Besides, it's not the first time I have to get used to a new environment. It happened the first time I led the first youma out of the Dark Kingdom to explore Earth, and each time we invaded a new country ever since."
He looks back to me.
"And it was actually the third time that we were banned from Earth by a mystical power. The first time we tried to make our way here, it was near Persia. We fought for thirty years before a party of wizards got us frozen into caves protected by dragons."
I stare at him in doubt. Dragons? Has there been dragons on Earth? Real ones? That must have been a very long time ago...
"But dragons died, and their magic with them, so we were able to sneak out some centuries later. The land had dried out by the time, and we moved to a richer space with more people, more energy to gather. And already weakened by endless wars. Europe. That's where Jadeite became one of us. And again, a woman called Morgaine betrayed us and banned us. It lasted longer this time."
I must be looking blank. That makes an awful lot of time. How much of it did he actually live? He looks only ten, maybe fifteen years older than I do.
"Was that long ago? That you were freed?"
He makes another pause. I wonder what's the connection between the questions that make him do so, while he answers others more openly than in my memories. I have a nagging feeling that it is the key to something.
"Seventeen months ago. The Senshi got awakened a bit later, apparently."
That makes about four years while I wasn't around. That doesn't explain the changes in him. And it's not that long, actually. Especially compared to what he already lived before.
He leaves coins to pay for the food - they changed with time, too - and we go walking along the streets. He keeps talking to me, but only about what we see and what I should know.
A part of me couldn't care less, but my old loyalty is still here even if none of that looks like a mission. So I listen attentively, thinking there must be a good reason for him to tell me all this.
Of all the things that surprise me, clothes are a big one. I had never seen girls wearing outfits as revealing except the Moon Senshi and Queen Beryl herself. Men's clothes are rather dull, on the other hand, so similar that they could as well be wearing uniforms. Where has the fancy season patterns gone?
Hairdos on the other hand are a lot less strict than I was used to. Though for some reason, Lord Kunzite and I still seem to attract attention as much as we did in Edo.
I can understand that he would, anyway, even without his uniform. Even trying to pass for a human, he's still handsome, and imposing.
Oh, I have to stop thinking those thoughts, it does me no good.
All the lights and sounds and things working all by themselves are eerie, too, but in some way it's like the magic in the Dark Kingdom. It doesn't really matter how it works, as long as I can figure how to use it and not to have it backfiring at me.
Besides, it's quite useful, and anything that can save me time or energy is welcome.
Once used to the accent, the language is very similar to what I speak, and I've always been good at picking mannerisms. So after a few hours of hearing people talk around us, I manage to speak without sounding too alien. With my looks anyway, people are rather surprised that I even speak Japanese.
Around mid-day we get ramen, and spend the rest of the day idling around. When questioned about why we don't teleport instead of walking, Lord Kunzite explains that he avoids to use magic unless it's necessary, because Queen Beryl might trace us otherwise. He did raise protection shields to hide us from her and Queen Metallia's powers, but it's better to be careful.
And then he adds that doing things like humans is the best way to get a sense of the new time.
That's the last thing I expected to hear from him. Doing things like humans? It always looked like he considered us as only slightly better than cattle.
He does get bored with walking, though, and we stop in a place where they sell these shiny heavy things called cars. The salesman is very servile and becomes even more so when Lord Kunzite appears to want to buy right away.
He has a strange reaction, though, when Lord Kunzite asks for my preference. I guess he thinks I am his minion or something.
I try not to show my embarrassment - not that I would mind having a, hum, relationship with Lord Kunzite, but it's just plain ridiculous to think that he'd want to have anything alike to do with me.
But it wouldn't be a good idea to tell this man that his customer is a demon lord from the Dark Kingdom, right?
So I just mention which cars I think are the prettiest. Lord Kunzite discard two of them for various reasons - not fast, or not comfortable enough - but does choose the last one.
He pays with the plastic plate called credit card, and we leave with a silvery gray car looking like a cat about to jump. The speed is exciting, a bit scary at first, but Lord Kunzite seems to quickly master the vehicle, so I don't worry. There's nothing he's not good at.
I catch myself gazing dreamily at him and gather myself into a straighter composure. It doesn't help that for once, without the duties of war calling, he's giving me so much attention.
I figure it's just because he's bored and doesn't want me to attract attention on us by messing up completely with this time's uses, or making a fool of myself while he's around. Also it seems, from what I've seen, that it would look majorly weird if he treated me like a soldier in public. I haven't seen any man in arms all day.
Still, it's disconcerting and makes it more difficult for me to keep my distance.
As night falls and I'm getting more comfortable with the language and the customs, we go to a restaurant that looks a higher class than the previous places we went to. It makes me nervous, and again we get those suspicious side looks from the waiters.
Lord Kunzite ignores them all and quietly gives me clues on what I don't know yet. The food is refined and I try not to mess up badly. But even when I do, he just looks amused and corrects me kindly.
It is... really odd.
I can't help to start imagining things. But I know deep down inside that I'm just being deluded.
He drives us back to Nephrite's mansion. Once there, he proceeds to give me a whole package of all I'd need to live here according to him.
An identity card with my real name - he says that there are so many people living in Japan now that no one will figure out I'm the same Kozakura Shiro from the XVIIth Century. A Japanese passport. A credit card at my name, with enough money connected to it to live in luxury for a whole human life or more. A bunch of papers.
And in addition to the car which, as I find out, is in my name too, an estate certificate that the house belongs to me. I stare at it in awe and confusion.
"Why?"
He puts a hand on my shoulder and a shiver runs through my spine.
"I have the dark power, I can find a new home or money any time. And I can also live without. You can't."
Despite his hand, it's like a cold shower draining me. It suddenly makes sense, the day out full of explanations, the odd attentions.
It sounds like he's just preparing me to live alone in this time.
And I realize that I don't want to live without him. I've always been surrounded by people and never cared for them. No more than they cared for me.
When Lord Kunzite took me under his direct orders, it isolated me from the rest of the army, but I was happy about it, and relieved in many aspects. I felt less alone with just Lord Kunzite watching over me, and everyone else avoiding me, than any other time in my life.
Going back to loneliness now... after having grown to like someone, when I thought I'd be alone forever... It's like starving again when you've finally tasted good food. Even if I never really was satiated...
I fight the tears coming up to my eyes and turn my back to Lord Kunzite.
"Thank you for everything."
