Chapter 17 – Who? What? When?
"Your wife?!" Erebos and Sailor Moon yelped as one. Sailor Jupiter's captor, in fact, was so stunned by the news that his lock on her throat loosened. As she jerked spasmodically in his grasp, Sailor Jupiter fell free, instinctively clasping the evergreen Earth Crystal to her breast and dropping through space like a stone with a startled, half-strangled shriek. Fortunately for the Jovian senshi, a stand of small shrubs along the fence line broke her fall. Although no one noticed, the scraggly bushes immediately began to bud out with new vibrant life.
Seeing Jupiter fall clear, Nephrite lunged with his battle ax, taking several mighty swings at Erebos who leapt back and accusingly hissed at him. "You're the reason the bond wouldn't take. Damn you, human! Damn you for ruining everything!"
In a burst of rage, the dark angel slammed one heavy foot down on the gold and emerald henshin wand, shattering it beyond any repair and abruptly reversing Jupiter's transformation as the spell, with nothing to bind and focus it, could not be sustained.
Nephrite attacked with redoubled fervor. Sailor Moon raced to her friend's side.
Makoto sat there among the leaves for a few seconds, too dazed and confused to even think of moving, but essentially unhurt, the searing pain having ceased when she'd clutched the crystal to her breast. Though she could barely seem to manage breathing at that precise moment in time as bright purple bruises in the shape of fingers stood out in ugly relief on the soft skin of her throat.
Thoughts tumbled lightly through her brain, as if stumbling through a pea-soup fog. She had an Earth Crystal. She didn't know why, but she did…and here it was in her hands. Slowly she parted them to look and it was then she understood.
It was a crystal of Earth, not the planet, but the ancient element of nature itself. Earth.
The crystal was an odd thing, neither rounded nor faceted like the ginzuishou, but shaped almost like a mint leaf locked in green ice, with rippled edges which were gently beveled. Seemingly etched inside the surface of the crystal itself was a delicate feathery pattern most reminiscent of the frosted fronds of a woodland fern. It was neither overly warm nor cold to the touch, but seemed to draw its temperature and light from its keeper, and it quivered and hummed like a tuning fork finding its pitch as she ran one bare finger over the center.
Deep inside her she could feel the answering resonance.
The spicy scent of pine needles and sweet orange blossoms and fresh, crisp breezes filled Makoto's lungs, driving away the smog of city life. Deep the heart of the crystal there was a crystal flash of storm that was reflected in the emerald gleam of her eyes as she fully unlocked the other half of her planet's dual gifts.
She alone could wield their power.
A voice that seemed not her own whispered, "Jupiter Eternal Ascendant Power, Make-Up!"
Gossamer wild rose petals of softest pink cascaded around her like so much confetti and butterflies danced on delicate, gossamer wings, buoyed up on the sweet wind as she summoned her ultimate form.
Sailor Moon watched wide-eyed as a barefoot Eternal Sailor Jupiter, the embodiment of nature itself, rose to her feet, a single dragonfly fluttering forward on to perch on the soft green fall of her bangs. Beneath them the sigil of her planet flared brightly. Jupiter's spirit smiled.
With each step she took, a carpet of multicolored wild flowers erupted behind her, breathing vibrant new life and energy into the orphanage's courtyard.
As if hearing for the first time the cacophony of man versus demon, Jupiter turned accusing green eyes on Erebos. "You have no business here," she whispered. "Leave now, or be destroyed."
Neither man nor demon responded, locked in mortal combat, but Jupiter was not about to be denied. She sent a blast of vanilla scented orchid petals toward Erebos, knocking him away from Nephrite with a simple explanation through a cool smile. "No. No you don't. If anyone's going to kill him, it's going to be me. Not some demon with hair the color of a squash and a face like a pumpkin."
"I can handle him," Nephrite growled in frustration, making another swing with lethal intent.
With a fling of a hand more flower petals pushed the warrior further from rather than closer to his goal, making him curse.
"I won't have you spilling blood here," reproved Sailor Jupiter solemnly, her eyes flashing. "This is a home for children."
The three-way standoff might have continued indefinitely had a fourth party not made the scene in the worst possible way.
"Alright, nobody move."
"Oh wow! Sailor Senshi!"
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In every children's home there are at least a few children who never seem to manage to fit in. The Kitai Home was no exception to this rule. Once upon a time that child had been Makoto herself, but the role of outsider was presently held by Shiin Rin, a child who had been anonymously abandoned as an infant. Clearly part gaijin, she was even less adoptable that the others, and she didn't even have a family name that anyone knew, so an optimistic social worker had dubbed the girl Shin, meaning faith, feeling that every child going through the system needed a little faith to get through. Unfortunately a rather nasty head cold had distorted the woman's voice when she was talking with Department of Vital Statistics, so the poor girl's family name had been formally inked in as Shiin, or 'cause of death' by a bureaucrat who was on his last day on the job due to having been let go for incompetence, and who didn't care that it was a disgraceful error. The mistake had not been caught in time, and Rin was stuck with the horrendous name. It was only the start of the girl's misfortunes.
The latest had been getting caught after she had sneaked out of her room in the orphanage after being grounded by the matron for her little experiment in the mechanics of time-keeping. Unfortunately for Rin, due to similar escapes in the past, every police officer in the area had been informed of her habit of going walkabout, and if they caught sight of her, they would immediately return her to the orphanage. She'd had the bad luck, sneaking away toward the park, to get caught by the sternest of the lot. For it to have happened so soon, she knew, some one of the kids who was not a part of her small circle of friends must have ratted her out. She'd been marched back in short order, though she'd struggled the whole way.
Of course neither Rin nor the officer returning her had planned on walking into the middle of a fight between a Senshi, a demon, and a Shitennou. Rin's deep blue-green eyes were as wide as dessert plates as she looked around, hoping against hope to see Sailor Mercury, her favorite senshi of all. Kazuhiko Kane's, on the other hand, were narrowed dangerously as he squinted down the barrel of his firearm.
Officer Kazuhiko had always been a by the book cop (as one Aino Minako had recently found out to her considerable disgust), and he had long considered the so-called Sailor Senshi to be, in his estimation, little more than a pack of female vigilantes, not heroines, despite their much beloved status with the general public. For one thing, monsters or no monsters (and having never seen one, he was inclined to believe in no monsters...people were just way too inclined toward mass hysteria), they always seemed to leave behind a lot of very expensive property damage. So he wasn't happy to see two of them now, though he was rather swiftly revising his thoughts about monsters as he eyed the inhuman-looking, yellow-haired being before him. His split-second assessing glance at the man with the...was that a battle ax?...though, had given him a strange jolt to his nervous system that he couldn't really explain.
Sailor Jupiter's and Sailor Moon's gazes involuntarily slid toward the newcomers and Jupiter gasped, biting her lip as she recognized the small face peeking out from behind the police officer's navy blue pant leg.
Erebos grinned, shark-like. How convenient of the humans to provide him a hostage. Causing a little pain (or more) to the little one would doubtless work wonders in convincing the Lady of the Earth to hand over the crystal. Of course he would have to get rid of the annoying big one first. But no problem...
He bounded away from Nephrite and with a single slash of his claws, laid Kane's chest open practically from throat to belly even as several rapid-fire bullets all but bounced off his hide. Gruesome speckles of hot crimson splattered across Rin's face and the little girl screamed shrilly as he bounded away with her. So did Jupiter, crying out the girl's name brokenly as she lunged forward, only to be yanked up short by a male arm locking around her middle.
"Damn you, NO!" she howled, thumping Nephrite on the chest as he reeled her in before she could get killed.
"Are you crazy?!" he demanded, as she fought valiantly for her freedom. "Do you want to die?! He just gutted that poor bastard!" His eyes flicked down toward the fallen man, who lay like a beast bled for butchering.
Tears streamed down Sailor Moon's face as she grabbed the Eternal Tier and raced toward the bleeding policeman. "I can save him!" Her lips moved in fervent but silent prayer as she dropped to her knees at his side.
The dying man gazed at her with dull eyes, his complexion going as grey as those pale orbs. He tried to speak, to tell her that he knew he wouldn't make it. Sailor Moon whispered in his ear. "Stay with us..."
Jupiter squirmed in Nephrite's grasp until she grabbed a double handful of nut brown hair, jerking his head down until it was level with her own and he felt as though it would be yanked out by the roots. Dew-touched green eyes blazed into midnight blue as she hissed, "You let me go so that I can rescue that innocent baby girl, or I swear to Zeus himself, I will kill you with my own bare hands, do you hear me Nephrite?! I've died before and will probably die again, but she's never even had a chance. I'm going to give her that chance, come what may, dammit! On my oath as a senshi!"
She was absolutely, dead serious, he realized. His desire to carry her off to someplace, anyplace safe warred with his pride that she took her responsibilities to others so seriously. She led with her heart, and damn the consequences. If she had done otherwise, she wouldn't have been the woman he'd fallen in love with a millennia before.
In spite of the screaming of his scalp, he leaned forward and brushed a fleeting kiss over her lips, murmuring against them. "Go kick his ass, Angel." As her eyes widened in realization, he dropped his hands from around her, leaving her free to do some demon butt kicking.
As he fell back to help Sailor Moon, Sailor Jupiter whirled away, facing off against Erebos. "Let Rin go. This is between us."
The war paint-faced demon's maw split and curved in a grotesque parody of a smile as he ran his fingers through the terrified child's blood-matted hair. "Now why would I give up such a" –his tongue slurped over his fangs noisily and Rin moaned weakly, looking like she was going to faint– "delicious bargaining chip?"
"Because," Jupiter announced with a death's head smile as she held out her cupped hands, which glowed green from within, "I've got your precious little Earth Crystal. And if you want it intact, you won't," she glanced with visible distaste at the fearsome clawed hands which toyed perilously close to Rin's face, "touch so much as a single hair on her head. Harm her, however, in any way and I'll shatter it myself."
She ran her fingers over the crystal again so that they could both hear the quivering song as it tuned itself to her. He watched intently as she slipped the precious thing into her bodice, cradling it between her breasts. It began to thrum in tune with the beat of her own heart.
The demon's eyes narrowed and he sucked in a breath. "You'll destroy your own powers in the process."
"I have more than one," Jupiter reminded him, letting a trickle of her storm power free to crackle casually between her splayed fingers. "Shocked? Well here's something even more shocking. I'll give it...and myself to you in exchange for Rin."
"And why should I trust you, bitch?" Erebos asked, looking slightly doubtful for the first time.
Jupiter arched a haughty eyebrow, managing to look every inch an offended royal, in spite of her bare toes, which curled in the scraggly but rapidly improving grass at her feet. "A princess' word is generally considered bond enough."
She turned an intense gaze on Rin, kneeling down so that she was on a level with the girl's glassy eyes. "Rin...can you hear me? Rin?"
The little girl moaned, making Erebos smirk. The fear was rolling off the child with each drop of sweat from her brow. The delicious scent made him salivate, but so did the knowledge that everything he wanted was almost within reach. Soon he'd have the woman and the crystal and its powers, and that stupid Terran who'd challenged him would have lost it all. It was more than he could have hoped for. He weighed the options. He had only to give up the child...
"Fine...the worthless orphan brat goes free."
"Done."
"Rin!" snapped Sailor Jupiter harshly as she switched her attention from demon to child. "I need you to pay attention. Answer me!"
The little girl stiffened. That tone was the one that the matrons and the social workers always used when they gave her one of their "We're very disappointed in you," speeches. The tone that always belied their gentle words. Sullenly she answered, "What?"
"I know you're scared, but I need you to focus, Rin," explained Jupiter, adopting a very matter-of-fact tone once she realized she had the girl's attention. "Do you know who I am?"
The child nodded. Her tone was flat and emotionless as she answered with a completeness which would have done Sailor Mercury herself proud, "Sailor Jupiter. The Senshi of Lightning and Thunder."
"I'm also the Senshi of Protection," Jupiter added. "And I'll protect you. Now when Erebos-san here lets you go, I need you to walk away. Not run, but walk very calmly to Sailor Moon over there. Can you do that for me?"
Rin's gaze flicked in the direction the green senshi pointed. She flinched slightly at the spreading crimson pool in which the other senshi knelt, but swallowed hard and nodded slowly. "I can do that."
"Good girl," Jupiter whispered, gracing the girl with a smile. She glanced at Erebos. "Let her go. Each step she takes away from you, I take one closer."
From the scowl on his face, the demon didn't like that, but the Senshi of Protection didn't care. She met the demon's fierce glower unflinchingly, not about to back down.
"Fine," hissed Erebos finally, uncurling his claws from around the girl, licking the blood from them and savoring the taste of hot salt and copper.
"Now Rin," ordered Jupiter. "Walk to Sailor Moon. Slowly."
The little girl, with a final glance at the implacable senshi's face, took a tentative step forward. Her eyes widened as she realized that Jupiter had taken a single step toward her captor.
"Again," grated the green senshi when the child paused.
Slowly, step by torturous step, the pair moved in different directions, like partners in some sort of grotesque dance. Erebos watched, his claws outstretched in eager greed. Soon...
Sailor Jupiter felt more than saw when Rin reached Sailor Moon's side. She knew the instant that Nephrite grabbed the girl, shielding her with the sturdy protection of his large body, and she could feel the power of the Eternal Moon Tier's magic working to save the fallen officer. So now it was up to her.
Taking the final step toward Erebos, she fought back the urge to shudder as those ice cold talons closed around her shoulders and shoved her downward. "Curtsy for your master, slave bitch," Erebos ordered, eager to see the proud woman humble herself before him. "I want to see a former princess bow to me."
"As you wish," Sailor Jupiter whispered, dropping into a graceful full-court curtsy suitable to any regal occasion. Her arms were held out at her sides as she descended slowly into her bow, then leaned forward over her extended leg and lowered her head. She ought to have had a silken ball gown's folds spilling about her, like the petals of a great flower, but instead she had only a fluttering of wildflowers and the fall of her silky green curls around her as her brow nearly touched the earth itself.
A coarse laugh of triumph came from Erebos as he savored the moment. "Not such a princess anymore, are you?"
"No," replied Jupiter, her tone suspiciously light. "Of course, in this life I never was a princess..."
Erebos looked down at her in surprise as she continued. "I was one of those worthless, parentless orphans."
"You?" he asked in spite of himself. "A filthy orphan urchin?"
"Yes," she answered. Almost inaudibly she muttered, "And as Rin would probably say...you never can trust one of those rotten orphans."
She paused for the barest fraction of an instant, then planted both hands flat on the earth itself and whispered, "Woodbine...Efflorescence..."
The ground rumbled ominously, as if one of Tokyo's all too common earthquakes was beginning. Sailor Jupiter smiled down at the earth, her look of satisfaction hidden by the thick curtain of her hair. Erebos had tainted the children's home with innocent blood, and now he would pay.
Dozens of thick woody vines, heavily laden with exotic flowers and emerald leaves, shot up from earth, which had split beneath Erebos' feet, and twined about him in a tangled, deadly embrace. He let out a choked cry of pain and outrage.
"Ensnare..." Her head snapped up and her gaze bore into him. "You'll never get this crystal, you monster. Not while there's breath in my body."
As the vines constricted, a thousand little needles seemed to pierce through Erebos' hide and burrow deep, seeping their rich fluid into his veins. It burned on him like acid and he screamed, vanishing in a stinking cloud of sulfurous smoke. Only his voice remained behind, with his parting howl. "You'll pay for that, bitch. One of these days, you'll pay!"
"Put it on my tab."
Sailor Jupiter chuckled weakly and leaned her head on her knee for a long moment, feeling woozy. She wouldn't notice until considerably later that the verdant green of her hair slowly leeched away revealing its familiar warm auburn shade.
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Sailor Moon had not been slacking off as Jupiter squared off against the demon. Horrified by the realization that no one, not even the world's most talented team of trauma surgeons could save the poor man, even had they been there on the spot, she hesitated for not an instant. Only the Eternal Tier backed by the power of the ginzuishou held any hope for him. She only hoped it had enough power.
The magic had a true battle to win, as the man hovered so close to death that he would later swear he'd felt the grim reaper's icy chill coming over him before his world exploded in a flashfire of crystal light.
Yet the ginzuishou would not be denied its chance to snatch life back from death's gaping maw. Leaking blood vessels sealed themselves as did lacerated organs, body fluids replenished through spontaneous regeneration, and torn flesh, bone and muscle began to knit themselves up so neatly that even Ami's surgeon mother would have been impressed with the result.
Nephrite had been trying desperately to keep an eye one eye on Makoto and another on the astonishing resurrection that was being performed before him. But what amazed him even more was when, through the dazzling silver-white light, he saw the police officer begin to be buffeted around as in an invisible wind. Ultra-short cropped hair began to lengthen and grow, billowing around the man's face in a riotous platinum mane that, by the time it was done, would come to well below his shoulders. There was a flash of pinkish-grey light that made spots dance before his eyes. He turned away, jerking his cape over Rin's head, least she be blinded by the coruscating display.
When the flash died down, his first thoughts were of Makoto and he was horrified to see her slumped forward, though gratified at least that the demon was gone. Still clutching the child in his arms, he raced to her side from across the courtyard. "Angel! Angel, are you alright?! Talk to me, honey!"
"Yes," she mumbled, her voice nearly inaudible. "I was just temporarily rendered unconscious, I think."
He caught her hand, hauling her upright until she was leaning against his chest, and began checking for injuries. To his intense relief he found none. Laughing weakly at her response, he pressed a kiss to her forehead, where her sigil still gleamed luminously, and another to one of the bruises on her throat above her velvet choker. "Thank Gaia it's nothing serious, sweetheart."
Still feeling a touch woozy, Sailor Jupiter blinked up at him stupidly and felt her heart give a little lurch. Rin had her arms clasped tight around Nephrite's neck, clinging to him like a small limpet. 'I wish…'
Sailor Moon let out an audible sigh as the power of the Eternal Tier finally died away, its work done, leaving a somewhat altered but definitely alive man before her. His eyes were still shut, but he breathed easily for a man who'd been sure autopsy fodder only minutes before. She shifted her gaze toward her fellow senshi. The picture she got was jarring, looking for all the world like a family portrait: husband, wife and child. Which was oddly appropriate, she thought, if what the man had said was true. She frowned, pushing back one silver pigtail, azure eyes narrowed speculatively. Was it?
"Sailor Jupiter," she called out. Three dark heads turned toward the senshi in blue and red.
"He's gone," Jupiter called back, sounding embarrassed and no little disgusted at her failure. "Not dead, but gone. Sorry 'bout that."
Nephrite scowled darkly. "He got away? Shit!"
When Rin glared at him and tsked disapprovingly at his profanity, he flushed. "Sorry for the language, kiddo." That 'kiddo' got him only another glare before she stuck her tongue out at him.
"I don't care about that," Sailor Moon said. "We'll get him next time." Sailor Jupiter nodded her approval of the plan and shut her eyes for a moment. She felt completely wiped out.
Sailor Moon paused for a moment, uncertain how to phrase her inquiry. "He said that you were…I mean…" Finally she wound up blurting it out. "Is it true that you're his wife?"
Sailor Jupiter's emerald eyes shot open in a flash and she gasped as if she'd been punched in the stomach. Had her ears deceived her? Exactly WHAT had he called her?
Nephrite groaned low in his throat. This wasn't how he'd intended to break the news. "It's true," he grated out, setting Rin back on her own two feet.
The little girl remained where she stood, staring bug-eyed at the man and the senshi, completely stonkered at the astonishing new notion that senshi could indeed have lives outside saving others and battling monsters. Next thing she knew, they'd be telling her that school teachers had lives of their own as well.
Nephrite lifted Sailor Jupiter's hand and carefully stripped off one of her long gloves. He slid a band firmly onto her slender ring finger before curling her hand closed around it as if to prevent it from falling off. That, though, was merely for show. It fit as if it had been made for her.
Some would have said it had.
Sailor Jupiter stared at her left hand for a moment, felt her breath catch somewhere in her lungs, and swayed dizzily due to a certain lack of oxygen to her brain. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the marks on her throat, which were, due to her senshi constitution, already starting to heal, and everything to do with the ring on her finger.
The wide ring was carved from a single segment of antler, the outside brown and rough with natural grooves, resembling nothing so much as the bark of an oak tree. The inside edge, however, revealed the faintest hint of its ivory colored heart that was polished smooth as butter and just as soothing against her chafed and scratched skin. A pink, oval-shaped diamond glittered richly on top, surrounded by the soft gleam of minute shell pink pearls.
On his own tanned left hand gleamed a similarly shaped diamond, larger and of a light apple green color, fixed in its mount by beads of old gold. It was set in a heavier and more masculine version of her own band, and the brown of its exterior was ever so slightly darker.
The Forest Queen and King.
Makoto paled, her eyes widening in sudden recognition. They were two of the most famous pieces of jewelry to ever come from the Jovian crown jewels…only the renowned Golden Laurel crown had been more well known. After her mother, the queen, had passed away, her bereaved father had put the rings away until the day his precious only daughter would wed. They had been stored deep within the root vaults of the Jovian Sacred Oak, a place that would open only to those of royal blood. So for such precious symbols to be in Nephrite's possession could only mean that…
"It's true…?" she said in a tone that was more question than statement, though had she been asked, she'd have said it felt…right.
He knew the exact instant that she realized it, when the storm of confusion passed and her eyes blazed with understanding. A faintly roguish smirk, tempered only slightly by the very relieved look in his eyes, curved his lips and he tugged Jupiter upward on her knees until she was plastered against him, hands splayed wide on his broad shoulders. With great deliberation he then planted a very firm, very deep and very, very carnal kiss on her unsuspecting lips, claiming them for his own. It was hungry and possessive and just a little bit wild, the kind of kiss that was much more than the meeting of two lips.
Rin acted reflexively, clapping her hands over her eyes, though she peeked shamelessly through splayed fingers and sighed. This was better than a storybook, better than a fairy tale. The senshi of the moon was equally taken, fanning herself lightly, hearts dancing in her eyes as her romantic side all but swooned at the sight. Both Rin and Sailor Moon were thinking the same thing. 'Wow!'
A disgusted cough broke the moment, at least for Sailor Moon, who turned around to check her patient. "Holy cow!"
He stood, looking as hearty and hale as anyone could ever have hoped for, and surveyed his surroundings. The ginzuishou, she noted, did good work. His pale grey eyes glittered like silver, his skin tone was good, and he now looked strong enough to battle an entire army of rowdy orphans. Long platinum hair streamed down over broad, brown-caped shoulders like a waterfall.
'Caped?' thought Sailor Moon blankly as her mind took a moment to process the input it was getting from her eyes. 'Wait a minute. Where'd that come from?'
"Oh boy," she gasped, recognizing his garb as being akin to that which Nephrite wore, although this Shitennou officer's uniform was considerably more elaborate with a jeweled, yet still lethal looking sword on one hip and gleaming gold braid and elaborate epaulets. He wore the mantle of leadership as naturally as he wore the cape. He also looked more than a little irked and she skittered away from him nervously. "They've gone and infiltrated the police now. Venus-chan is going to freak and Mars will blow up so hard she'll make Krakatoa seem like the planet merely hiccoughed.
Nephrite was still locked in his passionate embrace with Jupiter, the pair completely oblivious to what was going on around them and the fact that they had an audience. The newly found Shitennou looked on for a moment before his eyes lit up in recognition. Firm lips tightened into a thin, compact line.
"Nephrite," barked his superior officer. "Atten-tion!"
In a reflexive fashion, Nephrite pulled his lips away from his wife's and he looked around. He leapt to his feet, dragging Jupiter up with him as he snapped to attention. For her part, though, Jupiter merely blinked rapidly as she came to her senses and jerked herself away from his side, breathing hard and blushing furiously. Her lips were tender and swollen from his attentions and her hair was mussed almost beyond repair. She felt a sudden dual urge to hit both Nephrite and, for some reason, Sailor Venus. Not understanding the urge, at least as regarded Venus (who wasn't even there, for sweet Hera's sake!), she tamped it down for the moment but wished Nephrite would have kept his hot, kissable lips to himself.
"Kunzite?" Nephrite asked wonderingly as he stared at the sleek silver warrior. "Oh my god! It's you!"
Kunzite lifted his head and stood to his full height, staring somberly at his second in command. Sternly he said, "I am mindful of charging you with the duty to protect a princess of the Alliance, not to marry one. Pray explain then, Nephrite, how this came about?"
His whole tone and manner implied that the explanation had better be a good one.
Sailor Moon thought that was an excellent question. Distrusting Neil or Nephrite (She briefly wished that people didn't have so many identities, as it was all getting too confusing) as Makoto did, she would never have eloped now. But if she had done so then, well…marriage was 'til death do you part', and by her reckoning Makoto had died at least twice, once at the fall of the Silver Millennium and once because of Galaxia. So how could this be?
Nephrite refused to be cowed, placing an arm around Sailor Jupiter's shoulders. The green diamond in his ring sparkled vividly. "Good management. And Venusian Soul Bonding."
Ah…that explained the urge she had to smack Venus….sort of. Damn the Venusians! Makoto fumed, wracking her brain to try and recall what in the hell Soul Bonding might have entailed.
An odd, unreadable expression flitted across Kunzite's face for just a moment at the mention of Venusians. Then he turned and bowed stiffly to the green clad senshi. "Princess Angelita."
Rin's eyes slid to the well-kissed senshi and look of awe came into them. Both a senshi AND a princess. The only way Rin would have liked it better had been if it had been Sailor Mercury.
"Not in this time, Kunz," Nephrite interjected hastily as he saw Jupiter's hackles begin to rise. He glanced meaningfully at the avidly watching Rin. "I'll explain things later. But let me say that Jadeite and Zoisite are going to be awfully glad to see you."
"And Prince Endymion?"
"Ah, no…" He was cut off when, at the mention of a prince, Rin's eyes practically bulged out of their sockets. "Cooooool!" she squealed in spite of herself…and she never squealed.
Reminded of Rin's presence, Kunzite (aka Kane) scowled faintly. The little runaway minx knew his civilian identity. Bloody everlasting hell!
"Take her," he ordered Nephrite with a cutting look at Rin, who let out a squeak of alarm. "And bring your wife. We're leaving." He made another quick bow to Sailor Moon. "I thank you for your assistance, Madam Moon Senshi. I'm sorry, but we must leave. Do not attempt follow."
Sailor Moon's mouth dropped open and she sucked in a breath. It was truly amazing the air of quiet menace such softly spoken words could convey.
"Now wait just a darn minute here," growled Sailor Jupiter fiercely. "I'm not going anywhere with you two. And I'll be damned if I'm letting you take Rin away."
Kunzite stalked cross the courtyard and scooped up the little girl in his own grasp. Jupiter darted forward to intercept him, only to be held back as Nephrite caught her arm. "Don't push him, Angel," he said, having recognized the body language, even if the man's expression was nigh on unreadable. Kunzite was NOT in a mood to be trifled with. Of course, almost dying probably would put anyone in a rather bad state of mind. "He wouldn't hurt a child."
"That…thing," –his lips curled in distaste, and he looked to Nephrite for clarification– "It was after your lady wife, was it not? And it got away."
"Quit calling me that!" The Jovian senshi tried not to notice the hurt look in Nephrite's eyes as she denied his claim on her.
"It was and it did," Nephrite agreed stiffly, wondering just how badly Makoto was going to hurt him later for whatever Kunzite had in mind. He had no doubts that Kunzite was not going to take kindly to any delays by a recalcitrant senshi, princess or no. He also knew that 'I have to follow orders' wouldn't get him anywhere with his beautifully pissed off spouse. His heart sank.
"I thought so," Kunzite said, with a jerk of his head as if he'd decided something. "A thousand apologies, Madam, for my next actions." With preternatural speed, he whipped out a pair of regulation, police issue handcuffs and slapped one bracelet shut on Jupiter's wrist and the other on Nephrite's. Jupiter jumped. Sailor Moon yelped in surprise. Even Nephrite was startled by the action, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu.
"Not again!" Sailor Jupiter gnashed her teeth as she tried to jerk away and only succeeded in pulling Nephrite disturbingly closer. She could smell the scent of sandalwood and wood smoke, the scent of him, that always made her heart beat a little faster.
"We're out of here, Nephrite. Follow me," ordered Kunzite in a low tone. The dark-haired warrior had no honorable choice but to obey his superior officer's command. However, to an infuriated Sailor Jupiter who had to be dragged away bodily…and restrained, at considerable risk to Nephrite's own life and limb, from attempting to throttle Kunzite, the silver-haired, silver-eyed commander of the Shitennou had only one thing to say.
"Consider it protective custody, Princess."
(Author's Note: Kunzite's just asking for it, ne? To see where I got the idea for Mako and Neph's rings (one look and I knew that I had to include them somewhere. They were the only possible rings for this pair…being so foresty), see: h t t p / w w w . g e m s t o n e . o r g / g e m - f e a t u r e s / f e a t u r e i n t e r g e m - 2 0 0 5 . h t m l
I know I tweaked the designs slightly. But for the record, there are green diamonds. Their color is due to radiation exposure. They're both extraordinarily rare and hellaciously expensive…also very beautiful. And apropos of nothing in particular, I bet both Ami and Michiru would love that cool whirlpool-esque agate swirl ring on the same page. Happy jewelry drooling! )