Chapter Five
Message From a Mew
The first few weeks that Suika worked at Mew Mew café passed quietly, and without interruption. The newest of the mews spent her time waiting on tables, training with the other mews and looking up articles about their past encounters. One night, when the café was closing up, Suika noticed Ryou staring at Ichigo wistfully, not knowing that anyone else was watching him.
"Hi Ryou." Suika said, coming up behind him and causing him to jump.
"Suika." Ryou said, trying not to imagine what would happen if she had caught him looking at Ichigo.
"So you like my cousin." Suika said simply, stating the obvious and causing Ryou to turn a bright shade of red.
"No," he said, "I.."
"It's pretty obvious." Suika said, giving him a look. "Basically everyone else at the café can see the way you zone out whenever she's near. And that constant teasing? If there was ever a bigger sign of your affections, that would be it."
"I would thank you to keep out of my personal life!" Ryou yelled at her and made to leave when Suika caught him by his arm.
"Ryou, I didn't mean it like that, and you know it." She said, glaring at him. "The only person at the café who doesn't know is probably Ichigo. She can be thick-headed sometimes." She said thoughtfully. "Anyway, don't worry, you're secret is safe with me. Just remember a few ground rules though." She said, taking on a more serious tone. "First of all, she is my cousin, so if you hurt her, I'll have to go Super Mew Mew on your butt. And second of all, she is married to Masaya, and she definitely still has feelings for him. I don't think anyone would think much of you if you made a move on her while they're still together. And lastly, there are more important things to worry about besides your feelings. For instance, the aliens that are still attacking earth for some reason." She concluded.
Ryou slumped slightly, realizing that everything that she spoke was the truth, and she wouldn't have brought it up if it wasn't important. "You're right." He said simply. "When I started this project, I swore to myself that I would never do anything that would cause Ichigo or any of the other mews harm. And I'll stick to that promise."
"So have you found anything new?" Suika asked while wiping a stack of plates that had been left to dry.
"No, not yet." Ryou replied. "But Keiichiro and I have been pouring through huge stacks of data trying to figure out what is going on." At that moment, Keiichiro appeared at the top of the stairs that led to the basement. His usual calm and collected appearance had been lost, and he was panting, "Ry….Ryou….you need to come….see this…and…and bring the girls…"
Ryou knew that something was up immediately and ran to the doors that separated the kitchen from the seating area. "Girls, get down to the lair NOW!" He yelled, causing Ichigo to jump and Lettuce to drop a whole stack of dirty dishes. At once they dropped what they were doing (in Lettuce's case- literally) and ran down to the basement to find out what was going on. They were greeted by a shimmering image on the giant computer screen that filled the wall. Their former teammate, Mew Anzu a.k.a. Mew Momokio waited patiently for all of them to arrive before she began speaking.
"Greetings, my friends." She said, her voice echoing as it had before. "I have returned to you, as I said I would, when you would need me most. I see that you have found your teammate," she continued, smiling at Suika, "very good. I had a suspicion that it was someone close to you. Now that you are all together, the tests will begin. I cannot give you much information about when they will occur, I can only offer a little information. Follow it as you see fit:
The ocean will rise
When the sun must fall,
And in order to save it all,
Look to the moon
And look to the waves,
When courage and love is strongly displayed,
Only then will the earth be safe
And only you six can determine it's fate.
Now, I have done all I can do." She finished, and with that she closed her eyes and faded once again into nothingness.
It was Suika who broke the silence that followed. "What kind of information was that?" She asked. No one answered her, and she was left to wonder.
"Ryou," Keiichiro whispered to his friend, "I think you should see something." He left his friend's side and went over to a book shelf on one of the walls. From it, he took a dusty tome, and flipped to a marked page. "On my travels before I joined Ryou's father- and later Ryou- with the Mew Mew Project ," he said out loud so all could hear him, "I came across a bookstore who dealt with ancient texts and found this. It is a book on Japanese mythology, which described six warriors who could take on the form of animals to defeat demons..."