SECONDS OF TIME
Series: PGSM / Sailor Moon Live Action
Pairing: Shoujo-Ai (Rei x Minako)
Chapter Two. Feelings Searching for You
Rei sat in front of the sacred fire. Whenever her emotions threatened to break her mask of control, she often went there to cool down. Never mind the irony of trying to cool down in the heat of the dancing flames, it was her way.
Eariler. Sailor Venus, the Princess, jumped from the stage to face the youma. The youma thrusts its sword forward dodging it with cartwheels. She seemed surprised to see Sailor Mars following her lead, synchronizing with her movements. She looked at Mars who nodded at her, indicating that she would be there. They moved around the youma to confuse it, but it noticed as the Princess stopped and threw her Mikaduki Cutter. It easily intercepted the attack with its sword. Her brows furrowed as her attack ricocheted and hit the crux light above.
She clenched her fists on her lap. The fight earlier had not gone as smoothly as all her previous youma defeats. The fight after went even worse.
"I'm disappointed in you. As you are now, you cannot beat the enemy," she remembered the Princess' words. It made her glare at the fire.
"She doesn't even know me," she whispered. Since the death of her mother, Hino Rei has struggled to be strong and independent. Despite being labelled as a girl with strange powers, she did well at school and was generally admired. She was a diligent miko ever since her father left her at the temple. "Who is she to say I need to grow up more?"
Rei knew the answer. She was her Princess and Rei was the protector. She didn't even need to be the Princess for Rei to want to protect her. Watching the sadness on Aino Minako's face while they were tending to the dog, she had felt the need to keep the other girl safe. Seeing her transform into the princess only hardened that resolve. She would make sure that no harm would befall the beauty.
Rei remembered seeing Sailor Venus thrown to the floor by the explosion. Truthfully, she had forgotten about the youma. All she thought of was to make sure that Sailor Venus was not injured. She could've been cool-headed, as Venus suggested, but it was impossible at that time.
Another image flashed in her mind: a young woman in a white off-shoulder gown with a short assymetric skirt, merely a shadow with the bright light behind her obscuring the features Rei felt her past self knew so well. She shouts in a voice full of urgency. "The princess, protect the princess!" Rei felt the need, the desire, the promise to follow that command. It was a vision she began seeing since after the Planetary Festival trap of Zoicite. When the Princess showed herself the night after, she couldn't believe they were told to not protect her. Despite the Princess' orders, that urgent call stirred something in her heart.
She took a deep breath with a look of determination in her eyes. She made up her mind. "I'll take care of that youma," she said. She concentrated on the fire and prayed to kami for visions to aid her pinpoint the enemy.
Forest near the Earth Kingdom. Silver Millenium. In one moment, Venus fired her crescent beam at the advancing youma, the next she found herself rolling on the ground and in the arms of Mars while another youma blast from behind took out the youma she had been fighting. Mars pulled her to her feet and ran behind a tree.
"Are you all right?" Mars quickly asked her.
"Y-yes," she replied. "Never mind me, go after the youma."
Mars nodded, slightly reluctant to let go of her leader, and ran back to the clearing to face the youma. A few minutes more, the youma was nothing but scattered burning debris.
Mars walked back to Venus who was sitting and examining her right arm.
"You were hurt!" Mars' eyes was wide with concern. She checked Venus' wound with haste. Venus flinched. "Sorry."
Venus smiled. "You never were a good medic," she teased her fiery comrade.
Mars, a little offended that she was being teased for caring, released Venus' arm. "I wouldn't need to be a medic if you were more careful. You always order us to disperse and attack separately. If I didn't --" She trailed off, not wanting to follow that thought. She looked away from Venus.
"Mars," Venus said in a soft tone that always appeased the other senshi. This time, it didn't seem to work and Mars still looked away from her. Venus leaned over and kissed Mars' cheek. Mars quickly looked at her as Venus pulled away. "That's for saving me today."
Mars sighed heavily accepting defeat in this round of argument. "Really, Venus. You do realize that you have a weakness when attacks come from behind you."
Venus looks down for a moment. Mars' observation was accurate, but she wouldn't admit it to anyone.
Mars carefully took her arm to attend to her injuries. Venus watched Mars placing a bandage on her wound. As she finished, she glanced at her patient. Venus smiled, "I guess I'm too confident that you'll always be there to watch my back."
Mars lightly caressed the skin near the bandage. She watched her fingers' movement to keep from looking at Venus. "I don't know what I'd do if I were to loose you."
She reached out to touch the other girl's face. "I'm not planning on going anywhere."
Placing a hand over the one on her face, Mars looked up at her and nodded. Venus could see a deep sadness in the depths of her dark eyes.
"Let's go back to Mercury and Jupiter. Other youmas might make another move to harm our Princess."
"Right." Venus wordlessly accepted Mars' decision not to talk about it anymore.
As they walked toward the Earth Kingdom's castle, they reverted to their princess gowns. Unconsciously, they held hands as they walked silently.
Venus pouted as traces of her dream threatened to weaken her resolve. "I already made my decision," she told herself through her reflection on the mirror.
She remembered ticking Mars off last night. She smiled a bit remembering that she told Mars that she should've been cool-headed. "You should know better, Minako. Even in the past, she was always hot-headed, impulsive and most of all passionate. She is not the Fire Senshi for nothing."
Minako sighed. She wanted to be loved like Mars loved Venus in the past, but she also knew she would never allow that to happen. Even friendship was out of the question. She begged her heart to be of stone and resist the impulses of emotions from the past. She had her reason.
From the doorway, Artemis watched Minako looking sadly at her reflection. He knew it was the result of Minako meeting Rei.
"Maybe I should've slowed down her memories, like I did for Luna. If I had only chosen key memories and not allowed her to fully remember everything." He often felt responsible for giving Minako the burden of the past.
His choice of the Senshi Leader had been a logical one. Upon remembering her past and figuring out that there was an increased movement of dark energy, Minako made the strategic decision to be the decoy Princess. The strategy proved successful. Meeting Sailor Moon made her decide to come out in the open to keep the enemies on their toes.
But yesterday, she revealed her human identity. He couldn't stop her from revealing her identity. He knew it was a loosing battle when he tried to dissuade his ward, but he had to try.
Minako admitted to making a bad judgement, but all they could do was to make sure they were a step ahead of the enemies.
Moving toward the singer, Artemis addressed his ward. "Minako, what do you plan now?"
Minako closed her eyes slowly before turning to Artemis. Even when he jolted her from a deep thought, she was always graceful at it and rarely showed being caught unaware.
"First, we need to take care of that youma. I'm still hoping it was only that youma who saw me transform."
She looked back at her reflection and smiled. "I'm going back to the Church."
"Wait," Artemis called out, but the stubborn nature of Minako already had complete hold of her. He sighed.
"You may be the Princess but you sure are childish." Rei was speaking of the dog food competition Minako suddenly seemed to come up with.
"I hate losing," her Princess explained.
"I see," Rei responded. 'Four boxes is still overkill! If that dog doesn't die of colds, it might of over-eating,' Rei haughtily added in her mind.
"The youma?" she asked the Fire Senshi. She trusted that Mars tried to look for it.
"Dunno, I can't find it."
Minako noticed that Mars refused to even glance at her. "I see," she mimicked Mars' response with a pout. Walking beside Mars brought about a precious memory that took only a second to flash in her mind.
Moon Kingdom. Silver Millenium. Venus' morning started beautifully as she was roused from sleep by the voice of her angel.
"It's still early," Mars announced in a soft voice as she quietly entered Venus' quarters. "Let's take a stroll."
"Hmmm," she mumbled pretending to not want to wake up so Mars would come closer.
With her eyes closed, she didn't see the knowing grin on Mars' face. Mars sat on Venus' bed.
"Come on, sleepy head." She leaned toward the other Senshi and whispered on her ear. "If we don't hurry we might not catch a glimpse of your shining planet. It's the last day of the year we have the chance to see it."
Venus smiled. Mars was just in the right position. She reached up and wrapped her hands around the other girl's neck. She opened her eyes to see the person she wanted to see everytime she woke up. She pushed herself up to kiss her beloved. "What a perfect morning," she said after breaking the kiss.
"It'll be more perfect if we get to our clandestine morning walk. Come on, before everyone wakes up."
Rei stopped walking and looked directly at Venus.
"Why won't you work with us?" Her brows were furrowed, showing her disapproval of Venus' action. "Since you didn't tell us your identity, we were always looking for you." I was looking for you.
Minako could see a longing in Mars' eyes. She knew she had to push her away. Even without the aid of her memories, Minako knew emotions were stronger than the binding spell of Lethe. Her Princess and Endymion were testament to that.
"I needed it this way."
Even before asking, she knew she wouldn't get a straight answer from the Princess-turned-idol.
"Then don't just whimsically come whenever you want. It's better if you just go and hide somewhere." She knew the Dark Kingdom was after the Princess. She wanted to keep her safe. "Leave the youma to me." I'll keep them from harming you.
Minako couldn't help but feel offended by Mars telling her to hide. Hiding from the enemy was never the way of the princess of Venus.
"I would if I could trust you to take care of the youma."
She stalked away from Mars. "That was harsher than I intended it to be," she silently berated herself.
To the consternation of Rei, the Princess walked away again after telling her that she was a weakling who cannot be trusted to defeat the youma. She glared at the back of the singer.
"What a brat!" She thought angrily. Then, an idea made her smile. "I'll show her that I can look for the owner of Taro. I'll make a lot of posters and post it in many places."
"How can she think that I can just go and hide when I have a mission to fulfill." She ranted as she mixed the various shades of brown paint. "She doesn't even remember the past."
She was going to make one big poster. Working in the entertainment industry told her that you should focus on one big project and give it everything you had. She was sure that her big painting of Riki would be noticed by the owner.
"I'm going to be the one to care for that dog."
Artemis watched Minako ranting about Rei. He was afraid Minako would be side-tracked by her affection for the fiery miko.
"Minako, aren't you spending a lot of time with Sailor Mars?"
Minako heard the underlying worry of Artemis.
"I'm not befriending her. It's quite the opposite actually." I'm sure by competing with her and winning, she'd be too mad to care for me. I won't let her go through that again.
"You sure are stubborn sometimes."
"Rei-chan, I'm here." Luna called out to the miko. Rei had called Usagi to tell Luna to come to the shrine.
"Luna," she greeted the cat. "Where were the others last night?" She didn't waste time to get to her reason for asking Luna to drop by.
"Ahhhh," the blue plushie cat answered.
"Well?"
"Uhmm, Usagi was side-tracked."
"Side tracked?"
"That's what they told me," she lied. She didn't want Rei to know that Usagi was having issues with a guy. She made it clear before that she didn't think that was productive.
Rei glared at the live toy. She felt there was something she wasn't being privy to.
Luna felt warm with the intense glare of the miko. "Did something happen?"
Rei looked away. She didn't want them to know that she knew the real identity of the Princess. She didn't want them to know that the Princess thought she was weak.
"The youma got away," she simply explained.
Luna's eyes bulged. Sailor Mars was one of their strongest Senshi. "Have you tried looking for it today?"
Rei nodded. "I couldn't find it."
Luna paused to think. Not only was the youma capable of getting away from the Senshi of Mars, it also managed to be undetected by Rei's visions. "We can look for it tomorrow."
Rei nodded again.
After a few minutes of silence, Rei's activity made Luna curious. "Rei-chan, what are you doing?"
Rei's cheeks flushed as Luna looked at the pile of posters she made.
Minako sneaked out of her apartment while Artemis slept. She knew Mars would be up early to put up her posters. She had to catch her to tell her what she found out. Besides, she hardly slept last night thinking of how her interaction with Mars was going. She also didn't want to wake up from another dream-memory of the Silver Millenium.
Some blocks from St. Juuban Church, she found Mars taping two posters on the announcement wall. She tried to supress a smile on her face thinking how small the posters were. She'd be surprised with my work of art.
She moved closer to the miko and unrolled her larger poster. She started taping it to place.
"We couldn't find the youma after all," Luna told Rei.
Rei looked back at Luna and nodded. "It's probably hiding for now."
She walked back to her bike to get more tape when she heard the distinct noise of tape being hastily pulled from the roll. She looked at the source of the noise only to be surprised to see Venus. It was impossible not to notice how much effort the other girl put to make her much larger poster. Is that paint?She painted the whole poster?
"Hey what are you doing!"
Minako heard Mars. She finally noticed her. With her face turned away from Mars and hidden behind the visor of her cap, she smiled since she had deliberately pulled the tape to make some noise to catch attention. She also heard a bit of irritation in Mars' voice. Stop playing, Minako.
She stood up facing Mars. "What reason would a youma have for attacking a priest?"
"I see!" Luna answered and Mars looked away from her. "If she had a motive, then that means…" Luna continued.
Mars looked back at her, surpise written all over her face. To drive her point, she knocked at her poster where she wrote 'misa'. She looked back at Mars who understood.
"Luna," Mars asked the cat to contact the others. The mass would begin soon.
Mars immediately took off, not bothering about Minako, Luna or her bike. She rolled her eyes as she walked to the bike. Ever my impulsive angel.
She was wearing a skirt so she didn't think it'd be good to ride the bike. She started walking the bike back to the church where Mars would find it later. She softly giggled as she noticed Luna pretending to be a doll again. I guess she didn't notice that she spoke a while ago. Or that I spoke of the youma. Or that I saw her contact the others. She placed Mars' remaining posters on top of Luna to keep her from being recognized.
XOXOXOX
Author's Notes:
Hurray, I finished the second chapter! Let's see what do I say…
'Feelings Searching For You' is part of the song C'est La Vie. Chapter 1 Title 'Miracle of Our Meeting' is from Romance. As I placed in the first chapter, Minako's feelings find their way to her songs so I'm trying to keep that alive.
I decided to give Artemis and Luna active roles in the fic, especially Artemis. I have plans for him
Other characters will start to have some place in the story after Act 20, but I'm still in the middle of Act 18.
Oh, and tell me you didn't think where Rei's bike went off to when you saw her running to the church. Hehehe. I decided Minako would be kind enough to bring it to church that was why she was late
Off to the next chapter… now how am I going to go at it…