In addition to Gundam Wing and Sailor Moon, there are others working their way into the plot. As of now, there are five different animes, including the original two. Three are fully introduced, two are hinting at.
(5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5)
"Alright Chiba, one last time. The last time you saw Tsukino before she died was..." Reinhart pressured, and the black haired man looked up from behind his hands at her. His eyes were red and wet from tears, but she was immune to the pitiful image. "Usako and I went out to a movie... we'd seen it seven times already, but she loved the movie. It was romantic. I .. I asked her to marry me during the movie." Chiba Mamoru listlessly went over the facts his hands moving over his face again as he spoke.
"Thank you Chiba, now. When were you going to tell Tsukino how deeply in debt you were?" Naru asked, cutting to the jugular as he looked up with wide startled eyes. "How do you know about that?" He demanded weakly, and Naru shrugged, "It was easy for us to find out. You've been making money calls, saying you'd pay off once you were married. How did you find out about Tsukino's inheritance, by the way?"
Chiba looked down, his black hair falling in greasy clumps around his face as he fought back another wave of tears. "I would have paid her back," he swore, and Reinhart flicked her earlobe with her pen. "That's all for now, Chiba. You can go home."
He stumbled to the door, and then looked back at the two women as they briefly looked over his file. "I loved Usako... I still do. I never would have hurt her." Chiba vowed before he left, catching their attention only for a moment.
"He was honest to a fault, Naru." Miharu said, pushing through the papers scattered on the tabletop. Naru ran fingers through her long red hair, and then swiftly tied it back. "Honest, yeah, but we still don't have the killer in cuffs." The redhead complained, and Miharu glanced at her with a funny look on her face.
Naru met her gaze, blinking and asking, "What now?" The brunette put the papers in the file slowly, murmuring, "I was just wondering when you were going to tell me." Her partner took the file, shaking her head, "There's nothing to tell."
Not one to back down, Miharu followed Naru into their office. "Naru, c'mon, you're a native of Japan. You went to the same school as Tsukino until you went to America. You knew these women as girls." Miharu beguiled, and Naru looked away, her response a soft mutter. "I knew a few of them. And even then, I didn't really know them."
"Your mom says differently, Naru. Every night"
"Usagi and I were best friends for a while. Then we grew up. That's it."
Squaring off, the two officers stared at each other before Miharu relented and looked off to the side. "Sorry, it's your business." She said as a peace offering, and Naru softened, "No. It's my business, but you have a right to know. We're partners now." The two women linked arms, fingers intertwining as Miharu timidly smiled against Naru's bright grin.
"Right, we're partners."
(5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5)
'Papa-L' chuckled as he was read his only child's letter home. His real name was Leon Orcot, and he was a successful detective in Chinatown, California. 'Papa-D' read the elegantly written Chinese letters to him whenever they were sent, and he always enjoyed listening to the words.
"'I am doing well in work now, so the two of you can stop fretting. I have a stable roof over my head, nurishing food and enjoyable company. Everything is working out okay. And if our next job goes over well, I may even visit for a few months. Your Only Son.' Did you hear that, Leon? He might visit home!" Count D gushed, pressing the letter to his pale cheek.
"I heard, I heard." Leon enthused with a large smile, though he doubted that their son would come home. He'd written from all over the world for years, but he'd never once come home to see them. Something always came up. The pain must have been in his eyes, because he felt D's soft hand on his cheek. Their eyes met as D smiled kindly, saying, "He's coming this time, my dear detective. I know he is."
Chris leaned back in his chair and eyed his brother and his 'brother-in-law' while smoothing out T-chan's hair. 'What do you think, T-chan?' Chris quiered mentally, and T-chan cracked an eye open, his head still resting in Chris' lap. "That kid better come or I'll track him down and drag him home myself." T-chan vowed loudly, earning D's exasperated, "He's coming this time!!"
(5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5)
Setsuna leaned back in her chair, pressing a damp rag over her eyes. Little Hotaru nestled in her lap, her head pressed against Setsuna's upper arm. Both were exhausted from crying all night, and Haruka was in the kitchen, cleaning out what remained of the liquer cabinet with her mouth. At least drunk, she couldn't rail and scream about the injustice in the world. She was a good drunk, she just held to her bottles and cried quietly.
The police, Setsuna knew, suspected one of the Senshi of being the killer. But she knew... it couldn't be one of them, she would have been told by Time. Besides, they were all so broken by the four deaths... who could even do it? Makoto and Rei were up in the mansion's attic, sobbing over old photographs and tearfully talking of better days. Mamoru was in the backyard, killing himself slowly with the packs of cigarettes he bought. Luna and Artemis... well... they'd gone missing the night before Michiru's death. They probably went somewhere to be alone and grieve.
'We're all that's left,' Setsuna realized suddenly with terror, 'Everyone in this mansion is the survivors of the Senshi... and it's not over yet.'
In the attic, Makoto and Rei held pictures close to them, crying over the unfairness. They had asked Usagi's, Ami's and Minako's parents for pictures of their dead friends. And now they had them. "Look... It's Usagi, Naru and Umino." Rei murmured, holding up a picture of the three as children. Makoto squinted at the picture, then took it and studied it. "That's not Umino, Rei. Umino's their age, with brown hair."
Rei studied it with her, agreeing, "Yeah. This guy's taller... and he has red hair. He looks a lot like Naru, maybe she has a brother?" The brunette took it and flipped it over, reading the back, "'Usagi and Naru's first day of school. Osaka Ryuuichi walked them.' His name's Ryuuichi..."
They put the picture aside, and Makoto exclaimed as she found a picture of young Ami with her hair pulled back in a pigtail sitting on a swing. A little boy with black hair in a pigtail stood next to her, holding on to the swing chains and grinning. "'Ma-kun and Mi-chan at the park.'" She read to Rei, and Rei smiled weakly. "That's a good picture of Ami. Is that Tokyo Park?" Rei asked, and Makoto shook her head, looking at it closely.
"Oh... no. That's ... I don't know really."
They laughed a little, and then brushed through the pictures again with a funny pained smile.
(5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5)
"I don't know, Heero. It doesn't feel right"
"Duo. Just go with it"
"I'm serious. I've done this before, just not this way"
"It's the same damn thing"
"This is not the same thing. This is different."
The two lovers stared at the cat carrier sitting on the table in front of them. "They're cats," Duo argued, his violet eyes never straying from the two cats that hissed at them from inside the carrier. Heero growled, fed up with the arguement and tried to make a last stand, "She's paying us to kill them."
"But they're cats. We could just keep them as pets, you know"
"Duo, you're worse than a pet. We don't need cats"
"But who's going to know if we don't kill them?"
Quatre shifted uneasily in his chair across from them, big blue eyes focusing on the back of the cat carrier as he spoke, "She said that they talk. They're the Senshi's guardians, that doesn't make them just cats Duo." Duo glared at Quatre from over the carrier, "Cat, I figured you'd be on their side."
He shifted again, nervous, "We really need the money. Wufei's put in for a flight to California." The braided brunet leaned back in his chair, crossing arms over his chest, "So, we make enough to finance that easily." Trowa spoke up for the absent Chinese man, "Wufei's leaving us as soon as we finish this job. He's retiring."
Silence filled the room, and Duo gaped at the two of them, then at Heero's guilty look. "You knew! Heero! You knew and you didn't tell me!" He raged, and Heero looked away, muttering, "You didn't ask." Duo leapt to his feet, pacing in his fury and rambling, "So we have to kill a pair of innocent kitties because Wufei's retiring... and we can't afford to retire him unless we make more money, now can we? Because we need to get as much as we can off this job so that when he's gone, we won't feel the big loss."
"Actually, Duo, we're thinking of retiring too. If we make enough on this job... we can all retire and live some pretty nice lives." Quatre explained, "We can still go hunting, but we won't have to kill for money anymore."
Duo grabbed the cat carrier and glared violet daggers at each of them before storming out of the room. They each cringed as the basement door slammed shut hard. Moment laters, the screams of the cats came, sounding so much like the screams of a baby. Heero eased back in his chair, letting out a slow breath.
"Thank God those cats were here to torture."
(5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5)
Haruka blearily answered the door at three in the morning, when everyone else was sleeping, and stared down at the two mutilated furry things on her front step. For a moment, it didn't register with her drunken mind what it was she was seeing. And then she started to shriek.
(5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5) (5)
