gonk Holy shiz, I haven't written in… checks 2 or three years, depending on the story. It's not that I forgot about my stories, though! I won't make excuses, though I have many. Let's just say that I had to go play with real life for a while. And now, being older, hopefully wiser, and definitely more mature and emotionally stable, I feel ready to continue my work.

Okay?

Alright, one thins you'll notice that's changed about my writing is A: Hopefully some improvement, and B: Not as many Japanese words thrown in as before. In the three or so years since I grew out of my Japan obsession, I've forgotten most of it. I started learning French instead, and… yeah.

But, finally finding myself with the time, the inspiration, and the means, I believe I'll start updating again. As if anyone still reads these things. Oh, well, I have to finish it for myself, or I'll never get it out of my head, I think.

Oh, btw, the lemon that I wrote between the last chapter and this one got deleted of because it violated the rules. I might re-write it sometime, when I feel like it.

Waking up to Hiiro's familiar face, Usagi knew that every morning before this one had been wrong. For how else to explain the sense of pure rightness, then that before, it was wrong? Or at least not right. But this morning, this moment of opening her eyes and seeing the person she'd been searching for millennia for sleeping beside her, it was perfect. He looked so much younger in his sleep. Innocent. Peaceful. And for a while, she was content to lie on that high-end hotel bed and watch him and feel like, for the first time in centuries, everything was going to be okay.

And then her bladder interrupted.

When she returned to the main room, Hiiro was awake, propped up on his elbows and giving her a hooded look that tempted her to jump back in with him and let the day take care of itself. Pulling on her jeans, she grinned at him.

"Come on, cowboy, we've got stuff to do. Places to go, people to see, all that jazz." She found her sneakers and pulled her hair into a ponytail. "It's already 9 AM! We're meeting Hotaru in an hour, and I need food, babe. An energy level like mine isn't easy to maintain."

As she chattered on, Hiiro smiled to himself and quietly got dressed, content to listen to her sound happy. Grabbing her small overnight bag, they made their way down to the lobby where they got coffee and waited for the other guys.

When Hiiro hadn't returned by midnight, Duo had quite decided on what the Perfect Soldier was doing.

Guarding the girl while she slept, of course.

While his natural tendency for a dirty mind whispered all sorts of naughty things, a part of him was so sure of his friend's staunchness that he couldn't honestly believe that Hiiro would allow himself to have any sort of fun, even if it involved a pretty girl who clearly wanted to get in 01's pants.

That wasn't, of course, to say that he wouldn't bring up all the wicked ideas that had crossed his mind just to see whether he could get an emotion out of Hiiro.

Other than a gun to his face, that is.

He joked and alluded to all sorts of fun activities the missing member could have been up to until Quatre blushed beet red (probably to his toes) and stammered out a request for Duo to cease his disrespectful imaginings. Wufei had snorted, but otherwise ignored the braided fool's lascivious remarks, and Trowa stared at the wall and tried to pretend he wasn't hearing what he was hearing. They banged on Usagi's suite doors, but getting no response, assumed that the occupant(s) had already left, and so trooped down to the lobby.

Duo fell curiously silent when they actually found the people in question. Observing from across the luxurious lobby, it was easy to see a relationship that they began to realise they knew nothing about.

Hiiro, who always seemed to have something better to be doing than listening to somebody talk, actually seemed to be interested in what Usagi was prattling on about. And she was prattling. Cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling with excitement, Usagi sipped her coffee between seemingly endless sections of fast-paced chatter liberally punctuated with various gestures and expressions. And in the middle of the tiny girl apparently imitating someone she didn't like very much, Hiiro actually smiled. And laughed.

Really, it was more of a quick upturn of one side of his mouth and an amused snort, but it did wonders to the stoic man's face. For a brief second, his whole face was transformed, and it was breathtaking. Duo almost fell over from shock. This sudden insight into the people behind their masks, the true bond and friendship between them, how just the fact that Hiiro watched Usagi like there was nothing else in the world that mattered and her eyes seemed to glow when she caught his little expression of amusement spoke volumes.

All of a sudden, Duo's surety of his buddy's staunchness dissolved. All of a sudden, the impression of a hopelessly closed off, unemotional, impossibly stalwart half person was shot down in flames, and they all felt it. To Trowa and Wufei, it was surprise and a little bit of curiosity. To Quatre and Duo, it was surprise, curiosity, and little bit of hurt. It was somewhat disappointing that all the time they had spent trying to get Hiiro to open up had produced nothing, but all of a sudden this girl that none of them really knew showed up, and in less than a week garnered something they had attempted to get for years.

To be fair, though, Quatre thought, they did apparently grow up together. Of course there's a special bond there.

And when they recovered from their astonishment and actually approached the couple, they got another surprise. Upon realizing that the rest of group was drawing near, Hiiro actually looked over at them and the same strange little half-smile flitted across his face.

It appeared that more had gone n last night than even Duo could have imagined.

"Taru-chan!" Usagi shouted and bolted from the car. She enveloped the thin, pale girl in her arms and beamed into a face that the guys noticed was quite similar to her own. The two girls looked very much alike, and were of similar build, with Usagi being perhaps the more muscular, and Hotaru being maybe a little narrower in the face. They were about the same height, and both slim and pretty with large dark eyes and small delicate hands, and they shared a blatant affection. But Hotaru had pitch black hair and violet eyes, in sharp contrast to Usagi's light blonde and blue.

"Usa-chan. I'm so glad to see you again." The darker girl, though obviously happy to see her friend, was less exuberant in her expression. Her face held a soft smile, and her voice remained soft and even.

The blonde girl, gleaming in the sun, led her friend by the hand over to the guys leaning against the car. "Taru-chan, these guys are Hiiro, Duo, Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei." She gestured at each as she mentioned them, and they either nodded, smiled, or just blinked in response. "They're all great guys, you'll like them. Just don't let Wufei get on your case too much." Usagi smiled happily. "And guys, this is my sister, Hotaru!"

This got Hiiro's attention. "Sister?" He directed his piercing gaze at the girls, mentally cataloguing their similarities.

"Well, actually, my cousin, but whatever, we're sisters." Usagi stared back, seeming to wordlessly communicate something to the inquisitive boy. She mouthed 'Saturn' to him, and Hiiro's eyes widened a fraction only really visible to her, and recognition appeared on his face, heralded only by a slight relaxing of the forehead. His eyes flicked to the darker girl, who gave him a small smile, and he gave a surprisingly respectful nod.

Quatre caught this whole exchange. "I get the feeling there's a whole lot more going on here than we thought…"

Usagi smiled at him. "I'll explain everything later Quatre. I have neither the time nor the capacity right now, though. But trust me, everything will come to light soon; I wouldn't dream of sending you into this thing blind." He frowned slightly, but accepted this statement for the moment. "Things are going to get very complicated very soon, and I need to figure some things out before I try to tell you guys everything."

Accepting this, they all squeezed back into the car and prepared to survive Usagi's driving.

DBZ

After a lot of planning and seemingly interminable waiting, they were finally ready to try and cross over to Usagi's universe. They had been crushed at first, when Videl had told them that she couldn't bring Usagi to them. Apparently, Fate and Destiny were thoroughly blocking her from taking the girl from where she apparently needed to be. But they could go to her.

And so, Videl was trying to move more people across dimensions that she had ever attempted before. In fact, the total number of people she was going to try to bring was probably more than all her previous passengers put together.

They gathered around her, everyone connected somehow. Linked arms, clasped hands, supporting hugs in the case of Chichi, who was so nervous she could hardly stand. Holding her staff, Videl concentrated. She reached deep inside herself and let her power release in waves.

In a flash, the whole group was gone.