We do not own Sailor Moon or any of its characters.
This holiday tale that is our "Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Stars" season movie, takes place in between Sailor Stars Episodes #187 Baseball "The Shining Power of a Star! ChibiChibi's Transformation" and #188 Plane ride "An Invitation to Terror! Usagi's Night Flight".
Story based on "Sailor Stars Merry Christmas" Poem, Prologue, & Song Album. Please watch for several scenes included in this story, based on artwork in the CD booklet and the Christmas songs sprinkled in as the Three Lights play and carols are sung by the five Inner Sailors on the CD. We wish you a Merry Christmas as we celebrate the gift of Jesus together in this four-part Christmas story, Sailor Moon style!
"Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon"
"Sailor Stars Merry Christmas"
Chapter 1
"Christmas with the Stars"
And that thought holds true for the rest of this evening. Usagi attempts to lose herself in the joyous occasion her parents and the girls were making for her. They all seemed to feel her sadness, and treated her special, as to forget whatever sorrows her young heart may be filled with.
Rei, Ami, Minako and Makoto exchange glances when Mrs. Tsukino shows off a sweater she had just finished as a present to send away for a "certain young man at college we're all very fond of here." Mom was proud to show it, though pricked and bandaged fingered was she, to be able to have learned to knit well enough to produce only a semi-crooked sweater for her future son-in-law's Christmas gift.
But Usagi just smiles to her Mom, thanks her Dad for the beautiful tree and the special prizes of chocolates and candy canes for them all. The blonde bunhead aids little ChibiChibi in "helping" her decorate the tree with popcorn strands, that mostly get eaten by the two before they were hung anyway. Usagi accomplishes this all with a smile and a pretty laugh that was sincere in her love for all those around her. Usagi, keeping her spirits up, makes it all the way through the evening until the girls leave, agreeing to meet at the school auditorium in the morning for the Christmas play's final audition.
The household quiets down, as Usagi tucks ChibiChibi into bed, after brushing the candied popcorn from her fuchsia little curls. And finally, as the chosen child of the Moon lays down, silently, quietly, secret tears of loneliness whisper down her cheek to her pillow. Usagi holds little tired out ChibiChibi tight as she herself falls into a tormented sleep, just as she has done nearly every night since her Mamo-chan left.
Bright and early in the morning, Usagi's ears wake up before her eyes, the radio she had turned on, the lite FM station, to soothe ChibiChibi to sleep-the sprite was very keen on light rock music, for some reason it seemed-awakens her at this unusually early hour. Early for Usagi anyway, on a day off from school. With the perfect harmonized strains of a certain rock idol group, whom she herself called friends, one especially.
"To me you are always, the shine that I reach for!"
"And your smiling face is just like a small star."
"I will always cherish you, my love."
Usagi smiles at the gorgeous trio of voices, and gets up as the sun kisses her cheek, to find ChibiChibi-chan in a snug little pile, fast asleep on her pillow yet.
"So cute." Usagi whispers, covering the child back up as she skips from the bed softly, wanting to start this day out on the right foot….
"…So now I can only endure by holding back"
"These regretful tears of my pain."
"Listen to me now, Angel."
That's right, Seiya, I'll hold them back. I won't cry today. Usagi's thoughts answer the song as if its lead singer was speaking directly to her. She finds herself talking in her mind to him of late. Seiya Kou of the famed Three Lights had so suddenly become so much a part of her life.
Funny, isn't it? Usagi splashes water on her face as she washes it, getting ready for the day ahead. I couldn't stand you when we first met. I thought you were so arrogant and pushy! But now I'm glad we're friends. You are my friend, aren't you? Usagi dries her face, finding this morning that the sad look which lingered still from last night all but evaporated in the mirror before her, at the memories of the school Christmas play rehearsals, from yesterday afternoon. Especially the crazy antics of that same, certain dark-haired boy, playing the center of attention he and his two fellow "idols" were, for the rest of the girls in the class. Seiya mostly did it to catch Usagi's attention and put a smile on her gloomy face, but Usagi didn't know that. She found herself falling into gloomy spells more and more frequently. But less and less they lasted, she having so many reasons to cheer up nowadays.
Rrring! Rrrring!
The phone suddenly rings, and Usagi rushes to it, so as not to wake ChibiChibi who was so peacefully sleeping still.
"Hello?" Usagi picks up the receiver.
"Usagi-chan? Is that really YOU at this time of the morning? I'm shocked." Makoto Kino's low voice says with both surprise and humor.
"Yes, it's me, Makoto. I can get up early too, you know!" Usagi pouts with dignity at the swipe at her laziness. "Besides, Mom and Dad took Shingo to go see Grandma this morning to spend Christmas. We're going there too, later, but I'd miss the play this afternoon, so Mom said ChibiChibi-chan and I could take the bus tonight afterwards and still make it in time for Grandma's Christmas Eve party. You guys are still coming right?" Usagi asks, wanting her friends to be with her, especially this year.
"'Course." Makoto smiles into her phone, not especially having anywhere to go herself. "But the rehearsals for this morning have been cancelled. The play's director just called around and told us to call everyone else that we're all prepared enough for tonight already without the rehearsal, everyone being busy with Christmas Eve and all to go to another rehearsal when we're all ready. So, I was just thinking I would go shopping and get some last minute stuff, then we can get together at your house. We can make the desserts for the tables at school I promised to fill tonight. Okay, Usagi-chan?" Makoto tells in a long-winded sentence, more than asks.
"Sounds good." Usagi gives a thumbs up in the air at the thought of Makoto's homemade cakes and cookies and crumpets scenting up her house.
"Okay, I'm going out, before traffic gets even busier! I can't even walk to the market barely, for all the foot traffic! Oh, Usagi, would you call up Ami and tell her the rehearsals are off? And Minako-chan too. Be sure to tell Minako-chan to bring that big cake I made at her place yesterday for her to bring today. (Makoto just had to cook everyone else's contributions to the school play too). And Usagi-chan, don't forget to tell Rei-chan not to show up to watch the rehearsals you asked to her see this morning. I've gotta book it if I'm going to get anything good off the store shelves! See you in a little while!" Makoto had this "take-charge" way about her that Usagi found invigorating and also a little confusing, right at the moment as she hangs up the phone.
"Okay, call Ami-chan for the cake. Call Minako-chan at the school, call cookies…Ooooh, that's not right!" Usagi busies herself, dialing Ami Mizuno's phone number, knowing that smart cookie Ami would figure it all out for her. Then she moves on to call Minako and just manages to tell her to bring the cake Makoto was talking about and…
"ChibiChibi-chan!" ChibiChibi awakens in an unfortunate wet accident, and Usagi rushes to her aid. And so, the last call to a temple maiden was forgotten in all of the shuffle.
"Running, running, running, running!
That darn Usagi! Thirty minutes I've wasted of my precious time just waiting for everyone at the school to watch their stupid play rehearsals! And who's the only one there for me to watch rehearse? The janitor sweeping the floor!
"Stupid Usagi! Told me to come at 10:30 sharp! She didn't even BOTHER to call me to say the rehearsals had been called off!"
She's probably still sleeping in her nice, warm bed! LAZY SLUG!
Rei Hino races through the crowded Christmas Eve's Eve streets from the Juban High School auditorium, which was very empty, waiting for tonight's performance, towards Usagi Tsukino's home. As mad as a hornet, and ready to give her forgetful friend the "what-for" she deserved, for sending a busy girl like herself on a wild goose chase on Christmas Eve's Eve. "Why didn't she call and tell me last night? She's had plenty of time?" Her angry thoughts occupying her, Rei nearly crashes into a poor old woman with a mountain of wrapped packages for little stockings, dodges a set of children talking to "Santa Claus" in a shop window, and skids on the icy, sidewalk right past a baby in a stroller, rattling his candy cane toy at her-and right on her red, mini-skirted behind on the cold pavement. "Ouch! That darn Usagi! It's all her fault! Boy, is she gonna get it now!"
Rei turns as red as her outfit, more with anger and cold, than embarrassment, as everyone around her shrinks back, feeling pity for whomever would be soon at the receiving end of this fiery souled girl's anger.
Ding Dong.
"Hey, hey, I'm coming! Hi Hi!" Usagi happily sings out to the doorbell, her tummy full of Makoto's yummy cookies, putting her in a sunshiny mood this fine morn. "Rei-chan! Where've you been? You're late!" Usagi chides her late friend. Prompt Ami and then Makoto, back from shopping, had already arrived much earlier for their little impromptu morning get together.
"I'm late?" Rei Hino, red in face, nose, ears, with soggy mittened hands and even in unmentionable places, reddens even brighter. Having finally arriving at Usagi's house and standing in the front doorway now, she was ready to blow. "I'M LATE?! STUPID USAGI! I've been waiting at your stupid school for half an hour! And I ran the whole way here, just to hear you say 'You're late!'" Rei stands there, ready to explode, her hands on her livid hips.
"Oh, didn't I…call you? I must've forgotten when ChibiChibi-chan…" Usagi's sifting thoughts just now remember that she might've just let Rei slip by, totally forgetting to call her up about the rehearsal cancellation this morning.
"YOU FORGOT ME?!" Rei's infamous temper gets the better of her, and she grabs Usagi with a stranglehold around her neck.
"Hey, you two! What are you fighting about out there? Stop it." Makoto's hands rush in from her busy schedule in the kitchen.
"Mako-chan, when you told me to call Rei-chan this morning about the rehearsal, I guess I forgot…" Usagi admits sheepishly, hiding in the folds of her taller friend's apron.
"Ohh." Makoto gives Rei a peacemaking smile with her hands up. "Well, you know Usagi-chan, Rei-chan. She's…" Makoto tries to cover for her friend's ditziness.
"…stupid." Rei fills in the word, removing her soaked from the icy snow, mittens and plops them on Usagi's head.
"Ewwwww, cold and wet!" Usagi goes shrieking away, slapping the wet mittens down right on Luna's shrieking back. ChibiChibi-chan giggles at the angry face on the wet kitty. Makoto sighs in relief as Rei's anger passes at the pitiable expression on Usagi's now wet head as the ditzy blonde rubs her soggy bangs on Ami's apron front, Makoto and Rei both chuckling at their Bunhead headed friend's antics.
"Rei-chan, I was starting to get worried about you. I'm glad you're here now." Ami Mizuno was born sweet and had a way of making her friend's feel both welcomed and good inside.
"Thanks, Ami-chan." Rei smiles at the blue haired girl, who was stirring a bowl of sweets in the doorway.
"Well…" Makoto claps her floured hands together in a poof of flour. "Let's get those cookies baking! Got six more batches to do for the party tonight!" She felt more at home in any kitchen than anywhere else in the world.
"It'll be seven batches you'll need, once Usagi gets started on them." Rei sarcastically jabs in. Usagi sticks her tongue out at her as they all congregate in the kitchen.
"I love this time of year, don't you? Everyone's so happy and friendly to each other." Ami says, her gaze travels out the kitchen window, to an older couple delivering Christmas packages to some neighbors outside, smiles on all the faces.
"Sure do, Ami-chan! You said it! Cookies and cakes and singing and parties! And presents! Presents are the bestest part, don't you think?" Usagi overzealously takes a mouthful of cookie dough, as Makoto slaps her hand down at eating more of the raw dough.
"Yes, presents and things are nice, but that's not what Christmas is all about, Usagi-chan. It's about the day the Christ child came down from Heaven and was born into this world with the promise to one day take all our sins on Him. Jesus gives each of us the chance at life everlasting if we just have faith to believe in Him in our hearts. That's the true meaning of Christmas." The usual know-it-all tone in Rei's voice was for once softened by this certain glint of something that she respected soulfully.
"Wow, Rei-chan. You're deep." Usagi blinks, she in her childishness, often forgot what Christmas was really about. She was shocked that a Shinto born girl whose own grandfather was the master of their own temple, would know and hold so dear this part of the Christmas season, she herself had too often skimmed over.
"That's right, Rei-chan. My mom used to read me Christmas stories about Him. There wouldn't be a Christmas after all, if not for baby Jesus being born." Ami smiles at Rei, glad to see the Catholic Mission school that Rei's absent, non-caring politician father had insisted she attend for political reasons, had a much more important effect on her Shinto friend than just politics.
"Mmmhmm. You got it, guys. There's no 'CHRISTmas' without Christ." Makoto smiles, she a devout Christian from her Irish heritage. Though her religious parents were now gone, Makoto had never forgotten her faith, even attending Church services on a regular basis in their memory, her faith in God giving her the reason to go on when all seemed dark and lost in the wake of her parents' death, all those years ago.
"Well, I just hear these things from the Sisters at my school." Rei blushes for some reason, under their pleasantly surprised faces. She was a Shinto believer through and through, as her Mother and Grandfather before her at her family temple always were. It's just sometimes Rei could see things another way from her family beliefs, sometimes she really thought she could…
"So," Makoto sees Rei's embarrassment, deciding faith was best left unquestioned by others and left for your own soul to uncover. But she decides to give Rei an extra prayer tonight, that her friend may break through the religious barrier and see her way to the true Light of the world. "I wonder where Minako's gotten off to? She's supposed to bring the cake we've got to finish decorating and it's almost noon! Come on, Minako, we've got a deadline!" Makoto yells at the front door, for her blonde ditz friend to hurry up.
As if on cue, the doorbell rings in a certain frantic way that could be only one person. "Hi, Hi everybody! Sorry I'm late! Did I keep you all waiting?" Minako Aino flies in the door, her mouth going a mile a minute. "Well, anyway, you won't BELIEVE what happened to me in the park on the way here!? There I was, walking down the street minding my own business, mind you—" Minako says in her excitable way. Artemis rolls his eyes at her feet as they trample into the kitchen.
"—And I saw this commotion in the park. All screaming girls around some people and you won't guess who it was!?" Minako enthuses all smiles, her eyes flashing.
"Wild guess, huh?" Rei smirks sarcastically, knowing full well the only people Minako was crazy over these days. She and 99% of the rest of the female population of Tokyo...
"The Three Lights!" Minako explodes, answering her own question.
"So what's the big deal with that? You see them everyday in school. Don't you, Minako-chan?" Rei shrugs it off, a little jealous inside of being the only one in their group not attending Juban High School where those three idol boys attended school as well. Oh, especially that cute Yaten Kou! Sigh…
"Yeah, but this is different! They were on location, shooting the last day of that TV show, "Boy Holmes Detective". There was a special signing event afterwards. And look!" Minako proudly rips out a scrawled name on her brand new white leather purse. "I got Yaten-kun to sign it!" She hugs the cherished memento dreamily.
"Wow! Yaten's signature! That's super rare! He doesn't just sign for anyone!" Makoto too, could easily be excited over the thought and fame of the handsome trio. Especially Taiki-san, he's a dream! She secretly wished she was with Minako and got her favorite idol's signature.
"I KNOW! I'm so lucky! It's only because he knew me, of course." Minako shows off with a brush of her hair back. "I got on stage and was introduced and everything!"
"You mean you introduced yourself after they'd gone, don't you, Minako?" Artemis says under his breath, spending his morning in the midst of a trample of screaming, rabid girls was NOT his idea of a good time.
"What was that, Artemis?!" Minako smiles that toothy, imaginary grin that meant certain death for one white kitty in a minute.
"Nothing, Minako!" Artemis smiles back, praying for the storm to pass.
"They're going to have a "Boy Holmes Detective" Movie out in March! Taiki-san told me personally. I can't wait! We'll get front row premiere passes for sure, if I have anything to do with it! Let's see, December's almost over. January, February, then it will be March!" Minako counts on her fingers excitedly, doing nothing other than babble as everyone else hurriedly bakes the cookies for their deadline.
"Ooh, these cookies are so good! I can't wait till later to try that…Hey, Minako-chan?" Usagi stops stuffing cookies in her mouth to look up at her friend, counting the months with starry eyes. "Minako-chan?" Usagi asks again, Minako not responding again so dazzled by a pair of minty green eyes in her mind. "Minako-chan! Where's the cake?" Usagi could already see the much-spoken of delicious cake of Makoto's slipping from her watering mouth.
"What? Oh. The cake…" Minako, coming back down from her fantasies of being Yaten Kou's leading lady (sigh) bites her tongue with a pasty smile on her guilty lips up at Makoto, who raises her spatula threateningly, her eyebrows now raised as well.
"The cake…I forgot to bring." Minako admits finally, to everyone's exasperated faces. That special cake Makoto worked hours on yesterday, just for the school party was to be the centerpiece of their dessert table display. All Christmas decorated and colored, quadruple layered, it was breathtaking and delicious for sure…and now way across the other side of town where Minako lived.
"Minako-chan!" Six voices sing out in frustrated unison at their forgetful companion.
"ChibiChibi?" The fuchsia little head cocks in merriment at all the noise.
With all hopes of the monumental Christmas cake she had hoped for to display on her dessert table dashed, Makoto resigns herself to a smaller, quick short cake. She throws it all together in record time, it obvious from one look out the window at the hustle and bustle of Christmas Eve's eve shoppers, that they'd be lucky to get to the High School from where they were nearby at Usagi's house in time, let alone trying to backtrack to Minako's first. Makoto sighs with a smile at her laxness in counting on Minako, of all people to remember something, but she doesn't spoil a second of the day with a pout, in her genuine friend way.
The cookie cutouts were sprinkled and decorated to perfection, save for the ones ChibiChibi-chan had gotten into. The make up cake was finally done and everything was ready, so the girls prepared for their noon time appointment at the school. They bundle up well as they trek onto the icy sidewalks, dessert trays in hand.
"Now, ChibiChibi-chan, you be very careful. Hold onto my hair, okay?" Usagi instructs the little bundled up munchkin bouncing up and down in her new fuzzy coat, hat and boots.
"ChibiChibi! ChibiChibi!" The tiny munchkin asserts her little self with a nod, grabbing a tug of Usagi's endless spaghetti hair as her lifeline.
"Is everybody all right?" Makoto asks, leading with her two trays of jelly rolls, praying both her cookies and the messengers carrying the trays would make it across the icy, busy path un-bruised when several other strangers around them could be seen sliding and skidding in the shuffle.
"Okay here." Rei nods with the crumpets, not wanting a repeat of her embarrassing display before.
"I'm fine." Ami behind her, cookies in hand, had a natural footing on ice and snow, even with Luna on her shoulder.
"We're gonna make it, right, Artemis?" Minako was more confident in word than in thought. She holds her breath with each step, somehow managing to be the one carrying the SECOND cake Makoto just freshly made.
"Just watch where you're going, Mina." Artemis was all confidence in his transport.
"Usagi?" Makoto wonders at her friend's silence.
"Oh, don't worry about a thing, Makoto. Me and ChibiChibi-chan are doing just—WHOOAAAAHH"
Usagi's bravado was cut short as she goes skidding with the gracelessness of a fallen ice princess. ChibiChibi, as told, still holds on tight, going along with her 'big sister' in her falling wake…
"Gotcha, Bunhead." A strong hand and over confident, oh-so-heroic voice stops Usagi's descent, her spinning eyes catching a glimpse of Seiya Kou's smooth smile at her. His arms hold her and the tray of Christmas jelly doughnuts up.
He smirks in vain pride at his own heroic save, until just a moment before her little tag-along slider ChibiChibi's little fuchsia body comes plummeting into them both, like an elastic snap.
"WHAAAAA!" Seiya's high-pitched perfect voice squeaks out in unison with Usagi and ChibiChibi's cries, as the three of them go slipping forward in a pile, and smack straight into Minako.
"AHHHHHHHHHHH!" Minako's shriek adds to the cacophony, with Ami, Makoto and Rei quickly dodging out of the way, as they all go skidding on the ice. Doughnuts, cakes, ChibiChibis and all to the ground, just outside the schools brick gates.
"Are you guys okay?" Makoto's first concern was for their health, but her face sinks when she sees her doughnuts spread out all over the scene.
"Yeah, I'm okay…uhh—Seiya! Get your hand off me!" Usagi squeaks out, throwing Seiya's purely-by-accident misplaced hand from her upper torso.
"It really was an accident this time, Bunhead." His smile was crooked and all innocent.
Seiya had this uncanny knack for getting tangled up with certain blonde Bunheads at the most inopportune times and places.
"Chi-bi!" An unusually angered little cry comes from the puckered mouth of one sandwiched between Usagi and Seiya little dark pink nymph. She gives Seiya quite a struggle as he tries to remove her from the tangled mess of arms and legs and ponytails.
"Only you, Seiya." With a brotherly smile at his sibling's mishaps, Taiki Kou's large hands and long, capable fingers take hold of tiny ChibiChibi, lifting her away. She miraculously quiets her fit in his gentle arms. This sixteen year old boy standing six foot two inches tall and extremely mature for his young age, calms the baby's spirit somehow.
"Ah, what a mess." Sleek, small, silver, and saucy, Yaten Kou was just the opposite of his larger chestnut haired brother. At most times, where Taiki was often understanding and kind of Seiya's unenviable trouble with a gentle smile and helpful hand, Yaten was cruel to him. He looked down on Seiya most always and especially lately for always cavorting with this inferior race of people from this planet—and especially that one person.
"Yaten-kun! Taiki-san!" From somewhere deep beneath the snowbank they had crashed into, Minako's excited voice still comes out as Makoto and Rei put down their trays to dig her out.
"Yaten-kun! Here I am!" For some unknown reason, Minako often stuck to cute Yaten. When the group first danced on the pop scene, if she had her choice of the three, any of them would really "do", of course. But the shortest member of the Three Lights—that goes for "short tempered" too—was admittedly her favorite, though handsome Taiki wasn't far behind. Seiya, though admittedly a pleasing mixture of both handsome and cute, had an outlandish and teasing attitude that didn't suit Minako's "high" standards, so he'd have to fall in third place in her star-crossed eyes. Now that she's come to know them, Yaten's perfect idol attitude was just what she was looking for, and Minako always got what she set out for.
"Yaten-kun!" Minako hops from her snowed in pile, nearly knocking Makoto and Rei down in her enthusiasm. "We're here, offering the most delicious cookies and cakes, doughnuts and desserts, just for you boys!" Minako hams it up, batting her eyelids at the silver haired idol, as she smiles at him. She was inspired that he must be in love with her, since he signed her purse and no one elses anything.
"You mean all those ones all over the ground?" Yaten diminishes Minako's excited, glowing menu report with a sour look at the smashed and trampled doughnuts and cookies all over the muddy, icy sidewalk.
"Oh, no…Don't be silly! Ha ha ha," Minako gives one of her infamous petty giggles, lifting Makoto's tray full of crumpets and cookies for them to see. "And just wait till you see our (don't you just love it when someone who had very little to do with the creation of, except for maybe some icing tasting and carrying of course, take credit in the "our") special…our special…" Minako, in her showing off, just then notices the cake she had been carefully holding in her hands, being still a little sorry she had forgotten Makoto's first cake at home, was no longer there. "Oh no! Where's the—?" Her frantic eyes scan the area praying for the cake to have somehow landed right side up, just merely fallen safely to the ground during their fall, and smiles, finding her prayer answered.
"Thank you, Lord!" Smiling brightly, Minako was just about to put the fallen cover back on top of the yet perfect cake, when—
Just then, one forgotten cat, usually as white as snow, unburies himself, sticking his head out of the snow—and emerges right through the center of the Christmas cake Minako was so relieved to have found untouched. It was now split into ruins all over poor Artemis' face.
"Artemis! How could you!?"" Minako falls to her knees, almost about to cry at the unfortunate turn of events. Poor Artemis was unable to say anything in the mixed company, other than a plaintive, disgruntled "meow?".
"Oh well, I guess we weren't meant to have that cake. Cookies'll have to do." Makoto sighs, quite used to Minako and Usagi's mishaps always putting setbacks in her plans.
"I'm certain the rest of your desserts will be delicious enough to make up for the cake's loss." Taiki had this "way" of making a young girl like Makoto's heart throb.
"Really?" Makoto sighs into Taiki's violet eyes. He's way hunkier than even my last boyfriend. She sighs again as Taiki (after handing ChibiChibi to a nose-sticking-up-in-the-air-at-Seiya-still Usagi with a smile, due to Seiya's pouty look at her) takes her heaviest tray confidently with one hand.
"It's far too chilly out here for such lovely ladies. Please, allow me." A gentleman at sixteen, Taiki Kou leads the way to the school auditorium, holding the door open for each of the girls with a handsome smile. They all look up at him adoringly.
"Taiki's got a way with the girls, doesn't he, Yaten?" Seiya comments on how Taiki impressed the females on this planet wherever he went.
Then he yells out in shock to be left in the dust by the group,"Hey! Bunhead! Wait up!" Seiya bounds through the doorway, chasing one miffed Bunhead.
Yaten gives yet another sour expression at Taiki and Seiya both. Why flirt with them? They're only human –it's such a waste of time. We're only looking for our Princess. That's it. The mission-driven thought passing through his one-track mind, Yaten then shows that maybe there was something not so cold and complaining in his heart. With a soft smile, he kneels down to where Luna was laughing (in cat sounds) at Artemis as Minako dutifully rubs the cake from his face with her scarf.
"Coming in, Luna?" Yaten opens his hands to her, and Luna, being in a flirtatious mood, or a bit weak in love with the soulful green eyed rock star herself, instantly leaves Artemis' side to hop straight into Yaten's arms. He knew just how to hold a cat to make her purr, and carries his favorite kitty inside the school, as Artemis gives Yaten dagger eyes in the back as they disappear.
"Oh, well that'll have to do for now, Artemis. I've got a play to star in with the Three Lights!" Minako prided herself on being a "star" above all things, so she gave poor Artemis a lick and a promise of a clean-up job. The poor cat was still sticky, and his white fur matted.
"This is going to be one of those days, isn't it?" Artemis sighs to the cloudy skies, as Minako too leaves him aside for the rock idol, racing inside of the auditorium entrance.
"Angels we have heard on high"
"Sweetly singing o'er the plains"
"And the mountains in reply"
"Echoing back their joyous strains"
The Christmas play was as none other, all who had attended the past twenty-five years of Juban High's Christmas events had to be in agreement. However, there were, as there are in all stage productions, glitches.
Usagi as Mary holding the baby Jesus doll upside down throughout most of the play for one, until she realized the holy child's halo was not his ice skates; then, shepherd Umino tripping over his sheep and crying out "Bark!" instead of "Hark!" in his nervousness and searching for his glasses; next, robed Ami and Makoto as angels crash into one another under overworked stage director Minako's poor grip directions while they literally "flew" through the air on crossed wires.
And taking the cake on what should not happen at a live event, but did end up bringing the house down in laughter along with it, was what occurred next in Act 2. That's when grandiose trimmed red baggy pants clothed, turban sporting, dark blue ponytailed 'King Balthazar' of the three wisemen, being very unwise in giving Mary a rather too familiar wink, had gotten his gift pot of gold all tangled in her veil, hence totally flubbing his lines about seeing 'a star in the west', rather than the 'east'. This made the shorter, silver haired magi in a tall and ostentatious, gold and platinum hat and green satin skirts, 'King Melchior', poke the flirtatious Balthazar in annoyance with his bottle of frankincense, knocking his fellow magi's beard crooked. The childish, fraternal antics of which then causes the third taller, and only truly "wise" man of the trio, mahogany red-head 'King Gaspar', looking sleek and stately in his blue velvet robe and veiled hat, sigh beneath his dapper moustache as he, for one, excellently delivered as a polished thespian. Except for the fact the supposedly silent magi needed to whisper—rather loudly at times in frustration shared with director Minako—to be heard above the melee, in order to fill in everyone else as to their lines since most had all forgotten them in the chaos.
Somehow, the whole play turned into a Christmas comedy, a thoroughly enjoyable one at that, as the audience gave the cast a standing ovation, along with uproarious laughter. It was not quite the results the "star" narrator Minako had wanted, (her spotlight stolen by Three shining Lights, at times) but it would have to do this year.
The musical section of the event goes a little smoother, the packed crowd–-the Three Lights named big on the top billing sure helped, people standing outside for blocks just to maybe hear or catch a glimpse of the famed boy band—getting just what they came for. The Three Lights delivered in both instrument and voice, the three young rock stars managing to take a slightly less than talented group of schoolmates and turning them all into a musical troupe in perfect harmony. They all did such beautiful jobs on the joyous holiday songs, bringing to the auditorium true Christmas cheer in a style unique, due to the Three Lights in lead of the chorus. In the final tune of the happy afternoon, the four girls got the chance to sing a special Christmas carol, each taking turns with the cherished hymn's stanzas.
"Silent Night, Holy Night. All is calm, All is bright.
'Round yon virgin, mother and Child.
Holy infant so tender and mild.
Sleep in heavenly peace!"
As Ami's soft, diaphanous voice had taken the timeless song's sweet first verse, everyone in the audience felt touched by her gentle, lilting carol that took them out of themselves and into a holier point of view.
"Sleep in heavenly peace." Soon her other three friends then add their lovely voices to meld the repeating lyric together in beautiful teamwork strains.
"Silent night, holy night. Shepherds quake at the sight.
Glories stream from Heaven afar.
With the host singing hallellujah.
Christ the Savior is born!"
Makoto's sure and confident song overflowed with real inner faith that had carried her even through the toughest times of her orphaned life and a deep gratitude for the friendships she had been blessed with since.
"Christ the Savior is born."
When the others join in, the tall girl gives a reverent nod to the Nativity statuary that Rei—though she wasn't even a member of Juban High— had borrowed from the Sisters at her Catholic school, and insisted be a part of their play as the bossy gal in the audience looks on proudly.
"Silent night! Holy night!
Already long ago planned for us,
When the Lord frees us from wrath since the
Beginning of time immemorial
Salvation promised for the whole world!"
Minako comes shining in a strong and powerful tone with a heart full of Christmas love's true joy to fill the entire world, and a big smile to match her white fur-trimmed Santa sweetheart outfit, complete with red velvet ankle booties and all.
"Salvation promised for the whole world!"
Boisterously bright, the mini-skirted Santa baby blonde performer leads their quartet's chorus in the oft glazed over, original Joseph Mohr lyrics the pop idol wanna-be kicks out of the park.
"Silent night, holy night
Son of God, love's pure light
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of…redeeming…grace…
Jesus...
It was Usagi's turn then to strut her stuff, as she, still wearing her Mother Mary pale blue veil and white robes, came from behind the curtain to sing. Usually uninhibited to let her vibrant voice rip with Christmas carols, always just having fun, towards the end of the song this year she struggles with the deep meaning and thoughtful eloquence of the latter verse lyrics that had been allotted for her solo, making her own troubled heart tremble.
Thinking of Mamo-chan as she recalled a Christmas past again where she had held his hand when singing this very lyric of 'love', her high, squeaking voice wavers as it goes off key, fighting back tears. Although, since Usagi's normal singing quality wasn't exactly pitch-perfect, so maybe no one noticed as she just couldn't make the rest of that line through the tears…
But someone backstage did notice her heart in emotional pain.
"Lord, at Thy birth!"
That's when Seiya Kou's strong, crystal clear, beautiful voice steps in. He could not just sit back and watch her struggle when he could bail the bunhead girl out. Rushing out onstage, the handsome young singer, still partly in his red Balthazar outfit, minus the turban hat and half-falling off beard, smoothly helps Usagi reach those high notes of her final solo line in a spontaneous duet. He offers her the sky of his encouraging smile to strengthen her notes as his dark ponytail flies onto the center stage this star king felt perfectly at home upon to stand beside her Virgin Mary.
Taiki and Yaten look at one another with questioning shrugs for a second before they too, still in partial costume, join their impetuous sibling on the stage.
"Jesus Lord at thy birth…"
Then the charmingly smiling Three Lights bring in the entire audience and cast to sing the crescendo lyric, all together, to cover up for Usagi's emotional faux pas and Seiya's bold participation, as if it were all planned.
"That was amazing!"
"Good job, everyone!"
"So much fun! We were a hit!" All around, voices sing out happily at the applause to both cast and the production's success after the curtain comes down. Chatter and compliments fly everywhere, but Usagi still seemed lost as Minako, the "experienced stage pro" play director, gives her a thumbs-up and a congratulatory slap on the shoulder.
"Usagi-chan? You okay, girlfriend?" Minako questions, the big smile at the play's success fading as she follows Usagi's fixed gaze across the stage—only to find Seiya's serious, dark blue eyes gazing back at her friend, something intent in them. Makoto and Ami exchange looks with Minako, as Yaten and Taiki do the same on the other side of the stage.
"That was great, Bunhead." Seiya finally breaks their silent gaze with an embarrassed giggle as he full ditches his wiseman beard with a toss onto Umino's unsuspecting head (that was still too much in search of his missing thick-rimmed glasses to notice).
"Thanks." Usagi smiles back into his eyes, just as serious. Then, catching herself, she starts laughing at him as he makes a face when the coming unglued beard pinches his painful chin when he pulls it away.
"Don't laugh! That really hurt!" Seiya whines in his boyish manner, rubbing his chin, that was just starting to grow its own stubble, but Usagi keeps chortling anyway, quite unbecoming for the kind and munificent Virgin Mary of the Bible.
"Let's get changed quick and put out those desserts, gang! C'mon, Usagi-chan! We all have to hustle!" Makoto gives her friend a tug into the girls' dressing room, breaking the pair's tete a tete up. Soon, Rei comes backstage and awards Seiya a pair of warning eyes, as she slams the door behind the girls' dressing room he was NOT welcome in.
Shrugging at the weird Shinto friend of Bunhead's, Seiya follows Taiki and Yaten into the boy's backstage room, ignoring Yaten's suspicious eyes as the dark haired singer busies getting changed 'out of this monkey suit!'
The dessert trays fly out in a hurry, even as congratulations of the great play were coming their way yet.
Despite this supposedly being a yearly school Christmas play, as usual, the Three Lights were soon swamped by paparazzi, the simple holiday production becoming a camera fest it seemed. The girls—not the target of the press pressing in, really at all—easily break away.
Which was good, they all ready and roaring to go to the promised Christmas Eve in the homey mountains of Usagi's grandma. But not before squeezing in some last minute Christmas shopping.
So surrounded were the three idols that Usagi and company didn't get the chance to say "Merry Christmas!" or even the "Goodbye" as they had wished. But Usagi did catch Seiya's roving eye as Rei rushed her out the door, with only an exchanged farewell wave in his yearning direction.
The stores were packed as the sun begins to lower on this fine evening. Usagi and the girls did some serious shopping, choosing gifts, secretly hidden from one another. Makoto stopped to pick up some nice fresh French bread and other delights for Usagi's hospitable grandmother whom they were going to all visit tonight. The five young women all sang carols like "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" as they walked along the streets together, enjoying this time, with Luna and Artemis watching ChibiChibi, tagging along in the rear.
But none of them noticed a set of three fashionably coated "stalkers" soon trailing them all the while from behind as the girls made their way to the bus station to catch the last bus of the evening to their rural destination.
"Over the river and through the woods, to Grandma's mountains we come!"
But after spending a bit too much time shopping—five young women let loose on Christmas sales! What'd you expect?—and a busy, packed Shopping District full of other last minute shoppers, the five Inner Guardians, ChibiChibi, Luna and Artemis, throw gracefulness and poise to the wind, racing to the bus station with abandon, praying for it not to have left without them.
"Running! Running! Usagi, you've always got us running! Why'd you have to be so picky at the store and not just decide on something!" Rei was the expert complainer, especially when chewing out Usagi was called for. Usagi's indecisiveness in gift buying, considering her nearly empty wallet, made shopping all the more time consuming.
"Yeah, Usagi-chan, you were in the boutique for almost an hour!" Minako adds to the list of complaints as she huffs along beside Rei, Ami and Makoto, two blocks from the bus station.
"It's so hard choosing gifts! I want to get everyone everything!" Generous spirited Usagi whines, holding new packages full of all the goodies for friends her wallet could afford, along with extra baggage ChibiChibi-chan to her chest as she races.
"Yeah, but Usagi, still I think three hours shopping is a bit much." Makoto, carrying their suitcases, plus the bulk of the shopping spree puts in from behind.
"You know how Christmas shopping is, guys. The shops were so packed, you can't really blame Usagi-chan." Ami was always ready to pull her friend up when everyone else was down on her.
"Ami-chan, you're my only friend!" Usagi cries out as they finally speed around the block, into the bus station depot, ready to make their way quickly through the thick crowd all waiting for the final bus out as expected.
But they find the depot already empty.
"Oh nooooo!" Usagi whimpers out, sinking to her knees.
"ChibiChibi?" ChibiChibi-chan's eyes were wide with the innocent question, she having no idea what was going on as the 'grown-ups' talk over her.
"No way! We missed it!" Minako states the obvious as she plops her athletically pumped behind to the bus station's vacated bench seat.
"ChibiChibi?" Her little, frozen fingers long ago losing her mittens, pleaded to be warm again, as she holds her little digits up to the group ignoring her.
"We're too late." Makoto sighs, setting down her bundles and bags, disappointed with a big sigh.
"ChibiChibi-chan!" She demands to get out of the cold, giving Usagi an angry little face.
"What're we gonna do now?! That was the last bus, Usagi!" Rei puts her hands on her hips over her sniffling friend, dropping her suitcase to the ground with a thud.
"Yes, it was. The front office says there will be no more out to Nagano tonight. And not again until the morning after Christmas." Smart Ami had gone right to the booth and asked the hurriedly departing station workers if there would be another ride out, but with negative results.
"WHAAAAAAAA! What am I gonna tell my mom? I wanna be with my folks on Christmas! WAAAAAAAAA!" Usagi begins her infamous wail, tears flying from her eyes. ChibiChibi-chan copies her as well, bursting into tears, though the tiny pipsqueak didn't even know why.
"Well, how are we going to get there, guys? I doubt we have enough money left to hire a taxi or rent a car—if any of us could even drive, that is." Ever the team leader formulating plans for the group, Minako asks, not able to bear Usagi's yelling, as she looks to Rei, Makoto and Ami. They all had the same look of consternation, as the group of them stand out in the quickly darkening cold. with little funds left after shopping all day, and even fewer options as this holiday Eve was quickly descending, along with the frosty weather as snow had just begun to fall.
"Could we offer you a ride then, ladies?" A low, deep male voice abruptly cuts through the cold air from somewhere behind them. Instead of being frightened, the five not-exactly-defenseless, stranded young women rather felt quite warmed by it.
"Taiki-san!" Minako, Makoto, Ami, and Rei cry out in joy at the timely arrival of the most genteel of their three famous schoolmates.
"Oh, Yaten-kun, really? Really? Are you going to drive us stranded alone in the dark of night, little old gals up to the mountains?" Laying on the drama thick, Minako attaches herself to Yaten Kou's light aqua trench-coated arm where he had been walking beside his taller brother Taiki, her eyes aflutter up at him.
"I guess…if we have to." Yaten sighs bitterly, certain that "heroic" Taiki would never abandon a group of whining damsels in distress. Sigh. Just great. It's just what I wanted for Christmas. Sigh. Yaten was instantly dragged away by Minako, who had every intention to keep her prey cornered.
"Ladies, may I?" Taiki smiles in his gentlemanly way and gives them those cool violet, idol eyes as he lifts their suitcases and packages from Ami and Makoto's blushing arms effortlessly.
"Oh, but Taiki-san, isn't it too much trouble for you all?" Ami asks, concerned.
"Not at all. It would be our pleasure to escort you all." He answers, his voice deep and inviting. Makoto and Ami exchange pleased smiles as they follow his lead out to the road.
"Our van's not too far from here. Please direct me where you're headed and we'll be there in no time." Brushing back his slicked mahogany brown hair, Taiki confidently assures them of his excellent driving skills, even in ice and snow. No one questioned his license at the tender age of sixteen. Boys had certain privileges more than girls and respect to go along with it too—especially such a responsible and mature young man like Taiki Kou.
"Hey, Bunhead! You can quit crying now." Seiya kneels down in his long red coat to where Usagi was splat on the concrete, uncontrollably bawling still. "The Three Lights have gotcha all covered! We'll drive you out to your Grandma's place. And you get the chance to spend Christmas together with we three cool guys. What do you say about that?" Seiya double offers his group's services with loads of self confidence and an amorous wink in Usagi's direction.
"Christmas together? Really? You're going to drive us to Granny's?" Usagi's tears miraculously fly away and a small, amazed smile replaces it.
"Sure!" Bold Seiya thinks nothing of inviting himself and his brothers to Usagi's grandmother's, as long as Taiki was doing the driving, a feat he had not yet mastered. Yet. As he offers Usagi a helping hand to get up, Seiya receives a wriggling pink bundle of ChibiChibi instead, and she squirms inside the warmth of his big red coat.
She would cling to anything right now that was warm, her little nose so red with cold, and Seiya's chest felt so familiar…
"Hey! Hey! Little jellybean! Your hands are really cold! Don't go in there! Oooh!" Seiya's pitch perfect, high voice squeals and tickled giggles could be heard echoing through the empty bus depot, as he and Usagi, with that ChibiChibi popsicle making herself at home inside his coat join the rest of the happy chatting group. Then they all walk in a large group down the streets, glad to have a rescue transport to their destination.
Not to mention a totally handsome and hunky group of the three of the most gorgeous guys in the whole universe as their tour guides!
This Christmas Eve's eve was truly looking up as Usagi, Ami, Rei, Makoto and Minako merrily sing along the snowy paths, as the white stuff was just beginning to fall on Tokyo's outer city streets.
"So what do you think?" A silky voice asks in the falling dusky darkness, not so far in the distance from the happy travelers, surveying them all with distrustful eyes.
"You know what I think." A low voice rumbles like thunder, responding in likewise concern, forged with more than a bit of threatening anger and something far more. An engine roars to life, quietly, unnoticeably, to follow the cheerful group who were all gathering into the Three Light's awaiting van that drives off into the snowy twilight.
"Yes, Madame Galaxia? Did you call for me?" A soft-spoken voice breaks the eerie silence of the endlessly dark and spatial chamber the television studio elevator had opened up to.
For a moment, the silence persists, and Sailor Aluminum Siren magically exchanges her lavender business suit that she disguised herself in running Galaxy Television—after one certain Producer Nezu's ever ringing off the hook phone was suddenly disconnected—with her soldier uniform. It was not exactly either very "soldier" or "uniform". The light periwinkle blue strips of cloth melded scantily around her waiflike body in a flowing skirt, more resembling something perhaps a sea mermaid would wear, complete with seashell adornments and all—was one final reminder of the forgotten planet she once heralded as her own.
"Madame Galaxia-sama? Did you fall asleep? I'd understand if you did. The cold weather always makes me sleepy. I don't think I like ice and snow very much at—" In her ditzy way, Siren's mind often floated adrift of meaningless chatter and thoughtless wonders. She was totally and obliviously unaware that Madame Galaxia's evil wrath had no tolerance for her pleasant conversation.
"SILENCE!" The biting voice was deep throated and a bit colder than any chilling wind outdoors. Golden Queen Galaxia raises both angered hand and furious eye to this mindless henchman of hers. She gave this daughter of Siren more than enough time to prove herself worthy—even more than that of the disappointing offering from the planet Chuu who had already come and gone.
"Yes, Madame Galaxia-sama! Certainly." Smiling sweetly in a singsong kind of response, showing just how brainless she truly was, Aluminum Siren seemed to have no idea that her ruler's limited patience was on the verge of expiring—
And then so would she.
"Have you located a Star Seed for me as yet, Sailor Aluminum Siren?" Putting her anger aside for a moment, Galaxia's mere thought allowed the golden veil surrounding her gleaming throne to part. She gets a good look at her latest seeker of true Star Seeds, raising a purple shadowed eyebrow.
"Well…" Siren stands, cocking her ditzy long haired head as she raises an unsure finger to her lips.
"Yes?" Galaxia's patience wanes thin again as she considers simply destroying the trying creature on the spot. But Siren seems to dally in her words.
"I do have someone in mind…" Recalling the recent events of the past week or so, Aluminum Siren lets her eyes roll around her head, trying to think of some way to capture this particular target. Things had been so busy lately, difficult, too, trying to track this one person down. And right now, her stomach was hungry, too, and Siren was unable to work well on an empty tummy.
"SIREN! You have exhausted my patience! Perhaps your successor will find the true Star Seeds I require." Evil anger leaves Galaxia no room for understanding in her ice cold heart, as the golden queen raises one wrist towards an unsuspecting Siren, her emerald green jeweled bracelet glimmering its ultimate threat.
"Yes, Galaxia-sama. We will for certain succeed, without fail this time." Appearing from the shadows, this new entrant was nail bitingly watching her rival unknowingly anger Madame Galaxia, hoping she had not crossed the lone this time with her ditziness.
Over time, stemming from somewhere in a past all but forgotten, this rivalry had turned into something far more. Sailor Lead Crow, feeling responsible for the brainless blue hair imbecile Sailor Aluminum Siren was. As far as she could remember, Crow knew Siren as a rival, and a formidable one at that, when she got her head out of the underwater depths it often swam in. And, after all, more than all that, though she would be hard pressed to even admit so, Siren was Crow's friend.
And though she had forgotten much else of who she really was on her home planet before Galaxia had unlocked her star seed, Sailor Lead Crow knew how to take care of a friend.
"Sailor Lead Crow. You know of Aluminum Siren's target?" Galaxia, her hand still raised, lifts another eyebrow, ever so slightly interested in what her dark-haired, more rational emissary had to say on this matter.
"Yes, Galaxia-sama." Lead Crow steals a glance backwards at the still eyes-rolling-around-in-her-head Siren. Though Crow herself truly had absolutely no idea what Siren's plans were about—she even doubted the sift headed rival knew either—Crow did know that after Siren's several foiled attempts to find Galaxia's much sought-after star seeds, mostly at the hands of those blasted Sailor Soldiers and Sailor Moon, Madame Galaxia's patience was just about to give out.
And though she herself would be Siren's replacement, for some reason, Lead Crow did not enjoy the thought of losing her greatest rival like that. "We will return to you shortly. No doubt with a Star Seed for certain, your majesty." Laying it on thick, Lead Crow takes a quick bow. Her black feathered wings sway as she hurriedly decides to evade Galaxia-sama's certain wrath, and grabs Siren's arm, shoving both of them into their teleporting Old English telephone booth.
As it vanishes from the eerie room, Galaxia was left seated alone on her golden throne, and she finally lets her arm rest down, an evil smirk on her face.
"Very soon this planet will belong to me. Very soon the scattered remnants of the dead stars of this solar system will be in my grasp. And the final pieces of this galaxy and every other I have gathered already will fall into place. And I will control them all. I, the ultimate Sailor Soldier of the galaxy, will take my rightful place as ruler, as queen, as destroyer, then re-shaper of all the universe." Cackling, Galaxia and her chaotic evilness revels in the splendor of the most recently captured star seed.
For it was one particularly sparkling crystal she had personally stolen away from a soldier of great courage, this highly sought after and dazzling golden star seed belonging to this Earth's planet of life.
"Dashing through the snow!"
"In a one-horse open sleigh!"
"Over fields we go!"
"Laughing all the way!"
Down a snowy country road, a single black minivan resounds loud enough to shake the sleeping mountains it was passing through in the darkening night. The studious driver of the vehicle merely smiles at the unusual buoyancy in his car this holiday evening, as all of his passengers—minus one silver hair moping in the far corner where Minako had dragged him next to her to keep the recalcitrant boy as close as possible—ring in the season, their joyous lungs at full volume. Little ChibiChibi had been lying comfortably asleep somehow through it all, wedged between Usagi and Seiya in the middle bench seat.
"Hey, Rob! I don't hear you singing along. It's good voice practice, and we all know you need that." Seiya ribs his brother in the back seat behind him, his own long red coat now off and slung over Usagi's shoulders.
Rei, seated next to Usagi, had eyed the thoughtful gesture with trepidation. Brainless Seiya, as Rei had found out recently being more and more friendly with them, was being a little too concerned for Usagi for Rei's taste. But what could she say?
"Be quiet, Seiya." Yaten hisses, feeling ever so tortured already in the rear of the car, pelted by six loud and noisy voices screaming in his refined ears, making a sour face at his annoying sibling. He wished he could tell them all to just be quiet, and the short-tempered cute idol just might have, had he not been so captive an audience to the girls who just might bust out crying—and that was even worse!
So, Yaten grumbles instead, unheard under the cacophony, in his corner. His only refuge from the pandemonium was the soft, furry feel of stroking Luna on his lap.
I like the feel of a warm kitty on my lap...
"But, Yaten-kun, isn't it so much fun being together? We can't help but be excited, can we, Makoto? Hey, Usagi-chan is your granny going to make her famous rice pudding and fudge dipped cookies? I'm getting wigged!" Minako sings happily as Usagi nods, her own tummy left wanting at the thought of her grandmother's famous treats she shared when she could with the girls.
If you're lucky and I didn't eat them all as soon as I tore the box Gran sent in the mail, first!
Minako beams as she giggles loudly in Yaten's ear, girlishly in that way Yaten found so petty in thousands of his other female fans. But for some crazy reason, not so unbecoming in this blonde ditz next to him.
"Whatever." Yaten murmurs under his breath. Minako did not notice his displeasure and was already turning around for another round of "Jingle Bells" for the hundredth time.
"Dashing through the snow, in a Three Lights open minivan!" Fine-tuning the jaunty lyrics to fit the current situation, Seiya's loudest, most grating, strident voice—Yaten would never admit his brother had a real gift—led the chorus of cackling girls in the car.
We shouldn't be wasting our precious time doing these silly things instead of searching for her. Princess, where are you? His silent thoughts turn serious and Yaten stops stroking Luna's furry head. She glances up from her bliss at being petted in her handsome idol's arms, to note his sudden change of demeanor. Watching his intent gaze out the side window, at the oblivion of darkness on the white, untouched mountains all around them, it seemed as if Yaten's mint green eyes were searching for something, or rather, someone important in them.
What are you thinking with such serious eyes? Luna questions wordlessly. In her smitten obsession with the sleek and slender cutie idol Yaten Kou, she didn't notice jealous Artemis on Minako's lap next to her wondering the same query of her. He was more than concerned of his own standing in this hard-won counterpart's heart, since this good-looking idol boy stole away her affections.
Glancing in his rear view mirror, Taiki too notes Yaten's gaze from the backseat. Then his curious glance assesses Seiya in the middle row, fondly adjusting his red jacket to cover over the shoulders of that interesting female classmate of theirs, the pink child tucked snugly between them. Taiki's concerns were always heightened for his two siblings, for as far as he could remember. Always, since their childhoods, Maker had taken on the role of the eldest, even though Healer was a few months older in actuality, Fighter undoubtedly the youngest of the trio in every aspect.
How unalike you two are in so many ways—and yet, somehow the same. Only a logical, thinking man like Taiki Kou could view the same intensity in the connection of what both his opposite as night and day brothers were reaching for, with such obvious yearning, Although, Yaten continually sought out their absent Princess in solitude and moody soul searchings; Seiya lost his sadness in the laughter and companionship of the day. Taiki could clearly see that both star crossed hearts were in desperate need of their Princess.
And so was he.
Princess, will we ever find you? Sometimes it seems so hopeless. Taiki's own melancholy thoughts focus on the dark, endless road that seemed winding forever between them and their respected leader. His thoughts are pulled back to the reality of the here and now, in a certain flash of headlights that seemed to be trailing them. Though no one else would notice, the stealthy way it held back, as if an expert driver were at its controls.
But it took another expert driver, one who noticed everything, who had learned to do so to keep himself and those he cherished alive in this uncertain universe. Seeing the faint glimmer of glowing headlights in the distance for the past several miles, Taiki's sense of danger was awakened. He was always readied for any surprise attack, yet it never showed on his handsome features, as he calmly had been exchanging pleasantries of the weather and scenery with Ami beside him in the front passenger seat.
I wonder who—?! Taiki's wonderings were cut short, once again, as before the minivan a uniformed woman officer waved them down with a flashlight and a roadblock in the highway path.
"What's going on, Taiki?" Makoto's worried voice comes to him from the back seat as she breaks through Minako's endless chatterings for a minute.
Yaten, his heightened senses causing his large green eyes to slit in the dark, looks up from his head buried in his hands on the other side of the van wishing he could be anywhere except next to two chattering girls at the moment.
"I'm not certain." Taiki cocks his head as he carefully pulls in beside the female officer's car. The red-orange haired women steps up to his driver's side car window, stepping aside a moment to reveal she had a partner behind her, almost hiding with long sky blue hair, tied up under a police hat. She was a timid looking female and had a very unofficial manner behind the no-nonsense officer flashing a badge of some sort at Taiki.
"Is there a problem, officer?" Taiki Kou had this mature confidence about him that no one in the vehicle worried about his underage "foReign" license raising any problems with the authorities as he rolls down the driver's side window.
"Yes, sir. There is." The woman with dark tanned features fingers her dark sunglasses as she takes a quick glance inside at the vehicle's occupants above them.
Usagi shrinks, feeling the officer's gaze fall upon her intently as she shines her light at the yellow Bunhead directly, and exchanges a backwards glance at her blue haired, likewise sunglassed partner before returning to Taiki's question.
"There's been an avalanche, just up the road. The highway's been blocked off. I'm afraid you'll have to turn off at this exit here and wait for the road to be cleared." The officer says in a matter-of-fact way.
"Oh dear!" Ami exclaims in concern. "Has anyone been hurt?" She asks, her kind heart and medical knowledge hopefulness making her worry for her fellow human beings.
"We're not sure…yet. It was a serious accident. That's why no one's allowed past this point." She waves her head in a no-nonsense sort of way.
"I am sorry about your trip to your grandmother's, ladies. Shall we head back to Tokyo and try again tomorrow? You'll still make it in time for Christmas morning." Taiki turns around to face Usagi and the girls, an apologetic smile on his face.
"Ohhhhhhhhh." A big, collective whine of disappointment comes from every mouth. Seiya, too. From the racket he was making, you'd think it was his grandmother's house they were missing out on going to.
"May I suggest the Love Mountain Ski Lodge resort? It's just a mile back around the bend up the side road. Then you're certain to know exactly when the road will be open and be able to travel to your granny's so much faster then going all the way back to Tokyo. Don't you think? It is so pretty up there this time of year." The sky blue haired officer behind the other proves she was a ditz indeed, smiling like a travel agent more than a cop who was attending a life threatening accident just up the road.
"LOVE MOUNTAIN SKI LODGE?!" Four girlish voices longing for romance ring out.
Shy Ami quietly refrains from joining in, though her heart did admittedly skip a beat.
"Oh, how romantic!" Minako bats her eyes at Yaten, who sighs, seeing that this entire holiday would be no welcome occasion for him.
"Can we go there, Taiki-san? Can we go?! Then we can be at Grandma's tomorrow! There's still time." Usagi jumps up from her seat, hanging on the back of Taiki's seat plaintively. The thought of staying in a high-class resort with all her friends was just too fun to pass up.
"Well, I…" Taiki chuckles at her liveliness, and she doesn't give him the chance to reply. He didn't know how it would look in the press for the famed Three Lights to be taking a set of lovely ladies to a mountain resort though.
"Seiya, puh—leeease." Having a good sense for the soft touch she had influence with, Usagi yanks the arm of the boy next to her. She knew herself and her friends were penniless for such a famous, ritzy resort—but not these new, rich, rock star friends.
"Sure! Sounds like fun! Eh, Taiki?" Seiya always spoke before he thought. So he backed it up by making sure of every quick decision with his logical brother's approval.
"Yes, it does." Taiki smiles back. Usagi and Minako nearly jump for joy. Rei, Makoto and Ami, the more thoughtful three, exchange uncertain glances at the safety of putting Usagi and Seiya together at a "Love Resort".
But the prospect of being with the Three Lights took away any growing doubts for their young girlish hearts, too.
"Thank you, Officers. We'll take your kind advice. Have a safe night." Taiki nods at the two female officers, giving the women in uniform his respect.
"Yes, have a safe night, everyone." The darker officer says in a sly way as the Three Lights minivan turns around and takes the turn to the resort a mile back down the road.
"Was she the one, Siren?" The human form of Sailor Lead Crow pulls off her police hat and lets the thick bun out of her hair. "Siren?" Akane Karasuma turns to find her friend just standing there blankly shivering, her face as white-blue as her scattering hair.
"I can't think, Crow. I'm too cold. Can we go now? I think I'm hungry, too. Is it time for supper yet?" Siren's Reiko Aya human form shivers like a mindless fish in ice water. Crow rolls her eyes at how she ever got in this situation with her brainless rival, who couldn't even tell her why this girl with the Bunhead hair was today's target for a Star Seed.
"All right. Let's go." Crow sighs, feeling Siren's hugging ice fingers clutch around her as they squish perfectly like hand in glove in their signature phone booth and disappear.
Neither of them noticed the red tail lights that also seemed to have taken their advice, following the Three Lights van into the ski lodge turn on this cold, snowy night.
"Wake up, ChibiChibi-chan! Look at the pretty lights!"
"Oh! How beautiful it is here!"
"Man! Look at all those lights!"
"I love the snow sculptures!"
"Isn't it so romantic, Yaten-kun?"
Sigh…
The five teenaged girls sigh all at once as their ride pulls up to the scenic resort's front door. Taiki personally escorts each young lady from the vehicle when Seiya bounds out like a captured animal after the hour and a half ride, straight into the pristine snow. Yaten merely sits back in the minivan with a sigh all his own, that maybe he'd finally be getting some peace outside the confines of the minivan full of squealing girls.
"Seiya, the rest of the bags, please." Taiki's head motions to the van, his arms full of both the girls' suitcases and the girls as well, hanging all over the romantic enough member of the Three Lights to understand a young lady's revelry in hanging on a young handsome man's arm into a romantic ski lodge.
"Sure!" Seiya calls back, ceasing his toyings in the snow he rarely had seen, like a five year old kid. He leans his head into the open car door, grabs his coat, which he just now remembered to put on in the minus freezing weather, along with a few bags and excess sweaters and scarves left on the floor. "Oh and don't let me forget this brand new, already platinum CD of the Three Lights' newest album…or this "X-Men" comic book! Now, those guys know how to celebrate Christmas!" His arms were full, well, enough anyway he deemed, and he leans his head back in to where snobbish Yaten was still fussing with bundling himself up enough to leave the warm car and go out into the biting cold.
"You get the rest of the bags, Yaten." Seiya quickly orders, then rushes into the resort, not only to get away from the cold wind, but from another force of cold nature that was about to vent his fury at him.
"I am NOT! You can come back out here and get the rest yourself, Seiya! I only carry my own. That's all." Yaten goes into the trunk, takes his own suitcase and, as promised, no one else's, though his other hand was free. For Yaten learned, long ago, that only trouble came if you didn't just take care of yourself. No one else mattered.
No one except her.
Seeing her idol in a bit of one of his often low mood swings, it was obvious from the frown on his cute face, Luna, who was quietly waiting for Yaten to escort her in, was just about to jump with her bare paws into the icy, snow covered walkway and leave him alone as he seemed to want to be.
"Here, Luna. Don't get your pretty paws cold." And there in the cold night, Luna could see a hidden warmth, she hops up on Yaten's offered shoulder with a grateful "meow."
"Don't worry, Luna. I've got you." His scratchy voice was soft and sweet, whispering into her furry ear. Luna wondered just how this special young man everyone believed to be as cold as ice, could be warm and devoted to her. She was one of the very few Yaten ever revealed his true character to. And again, Luna wonders why he hid it from others.
Just what is it about his past that keeps the poor boy so closed?
"Look at the tree, ChibiChibi-chan! Look!" Usagi carries her little charge to the monstrous Christmas tree the resort had set up in the front lobby.
"Woooooo-ooooooooh! ChibiChibi-chan!" Would the child ever find any other word in her baby talk language? Not likely, especially when she was excited. Her little blue eyes lit up as bright as the gleaming Christmas baubles and decorations aglow on the tree's boughs. Though a few years older, Usagi was reveling in it too, almost just as much, giggling contagiously.
"Admit it, Usagi-chan! You're enjoying this more than ChibiChibi-chan is!" Minako teases, the sparkle and shine of the resort's decorations catch her youthful attentions as well.
"MI—NA! I'm not a little girl!" Usagi, a mature sixteen-year-old girl now, was insulted to be called a drooling, cooing baby like ChibiChibi. Usagi was drooling and cooing in a much more adult manner now.
"Sometimes it's better to stay young and vibrant, Kitten." A low voice breaks into the girls' chattering conversation as they wait for Taiki—man with lots of money—to pay for their rooms.
"Youth is a beautiful thing…at times." Another more teasing voice chuckles in agreement with that certain twinge of flirty French-ness.
"Haruka!" The five girls turn from the dazzling Christmas tree to yet another dazzling, welcomed sight as Haruka Tenou, in her maize pantsuit, runs a careless hand through her short cropped golden hair with a winning smile down at them.
"Michiru!"
On Haruka's firm arm, debutante aquamarine beauty Michiru Kaiou giggles in lilting tones in her own far more than girlish way at the surprise written on the girls' sweet faces.
"How coincidental meeting you up here! Just passing by? Or are you staying?" As innocent as a dove, Michiru's blue eyes sparkle the query to the group.
"Well, we're cramming up here until the road block up the ways on this main road is down. We were on our way to Usagi's grandmother's and…" Makoto starts to explain to her two older friends.
"You don't say?" Michiru lets her snooty side show, as she dismisses Makoto and the others while watching her Haruka's eyes beside her glow fiery, blazing hotter than the lodge's own fireplace. In that way, Michiru had never quite seen her beloved cousin's eyes flare before.
Before she encountered HIM.
"You again!? What are you doing here?" Seiya, his cheeks red from just racing into the lobby from the outdoor cold, stops in midstride, the smile he was bringing into the room quickly evaporates into a hesitant frown as he and Haruka exchange hard, questioning looks.
"I could ask you the same thing." With a nasty bite in her deep throated words, Haruka Tenou's eyes could freeze anyone dead cold with her gaze. But Seiya was someone who could not be frightened away from a dare. The two of them just glare at one another across the lobby, as an intense hatred for each other fills the room.
"Ladies. Here are your passkeys. Your suites are all connected and…" Taiki, about to hand out the girls' rooms keys, stops short upon seeing Seiya and that woman's furious stares at each other as he enters the room.
"Good evening, Kaiou-san…Tenou-san." Taiki for one, was quick to regain his manners, giving Michiru a gracious nod, and Haruka a more cautious one.
"Kou-san." Michiru only politely nods back, almost seeming on the verge of a laugh at Haruka's unmoving stare at that other, more bothersome boy.
"Taiki, the rest of the bags are still in the car—and I'm not going to lug any more-" Just then the third boy (admittedly the best looking of the three, a certain cuteness about him…Maybe it's those stylish silver bangs in those green eyes? Michiru notices silently to herself, having gotten over the lipstick incident that now she rather found his interest provocatively enticing, on second reflection) comes into the tensed room with his usual complaining whine. He, too, pauses in mid-sentence, giving Haruka and Michiru a testy look. Then a snooty smile passes over his face at the way that tall blonde from you-know-where was glaring at Seiya like he was the devil himself—something Yaten wasn't always not in agreement with.
"Should have figured we'd be having the pleasure of seeing you two here – together—in this fine resort." It wasn't just Yaten's voice and that all-knowing look that made Michiru's skin crawl uncomfortably. She glances away from his insinuating look, taking a step back behind Haruka, who stiffens in her stance but doesn't even afford the bothersome, ill-tongued shrimp a glance, her gaze still fixed on the one who was the whole problem, after all.
"Then maybe the three of you had better go enjoy your holiday somewhere else. I'm sure famous idolslike you have far more important things to do than waste your valuable time trifling with your young female fans," Haruka's slitted green eyes flash in that fearsome way. A smirk appears on her face as her eyes rest on each of the three men with the underlying threat.
"No. Nothing more important. Just like certain jerks who got time on their hands to bother other people and can't mind their ownbusiness."
Ouch. Bang. Bang. The five girls in question watch blinkingly as, back and forth, Seiya's biting words hit at Haruka, her flaring eyes making it seem like the rest of her furious body was about to send him a flying punch in response.
"They definitely have a grudge against each other, don't they?" Minako asks in an awed whisper behind her hand.
"Um-hmm." The four other girls nod in agreement, they knowing what it meant for their Haruka to be angry with someone, though none of the girls really understood the argument between the two.
"Grudge! Grudge!" ChibiChibi-chan had this penchant to repeat in her baby voice the funny words of grown-ups that caught her ear. And to a tiny child of three, Minako Aino could be considered an adult, too.
"Well, anyway, we're all here now. Here are your keys, ladies. There seems to be a fine restaurant in this hotel. We'd be honored if we could treat you to dinner. Yaten, Seiya, let's finish retrieving the things in the van." Taiki, seeing the possibility of civil conversation impossible with this difficult creature of a woman. He eyes her and her "companion"- ahem- with hesitant eyes, still not wanting to believe what may seem obvious to strangers of the two of them as he hands out the room keys to the girls. Yaten follows Taiki out from the lounge, no longer complaining of work, nor cold. For in his eyes, anything was more welcome than being in the same room with that Tenou woman.
But Seiya lingers, not ready to stand down from any challenge she dished out.
"Listen. I'm making this my business, Kou. You stayaway from her." Addressing the younger man with the last name only reserved usually between tough-guy men, Haruka makes her intense point hit home, her low voice rumbling like thunder–a dangerous looming threat.
"Just don't get in myway—Tenou." His high-pitched voice somehow matched the fierceness in her low thunder with an intensity Haruka rarely has seen in another being, both of these passionate fighters continuing their glare, neither one wanting to back down, their angry eyes locked in fierce competition.
"Seiya." Taiki's calmly commanding voice almost orders his younger brother to come away, He, for one, did not want his brother to have a scene here with that woman to kick off their supposedly pleasant vacation. With the likely bad result of his being kicked out of the high class resort, the way he knew Seiya fought rough and tumble, Taiki wasn't that certain that his hot-tempered brother would have much compunction in physically assaulting a member of the female race, as Taiki himself would, no matter how deplorable this specimen may be.
With a final parting deadly glance back, Seiya follows his brother out, not feeling a bit of the biting cold at all even for the lack of coat or jacket because his insides were still so boiling from those few minutes he faced off with that person.
"Haruka?" Michiru's arms just now unfold from that tough guy pose she struck standing behind her cousin's fearsome wrath towards those boys. She looks to her dearest's fixed gaze at the doorway that fiery young idol had just departed through.
"Michiru—can't I put my hands around his neck? Just once is all I'll need." Fuming, Haruka could share with Michiru –and Michiru only—her innermost emotions. And for some reason this person known as 'Seiya Kou' got her emotions riled so quickly in that way Michiru had never quite seen before.
"Now, Haruka, dear," Michiru getting strange vibes of her own from those three, was weary of them as well, but she found Haruka's fury at that silly boy almost…funny. And it also churned up some envious emotions of her own at all the attention her cousin was giving him.
"Remember—this is Christmas—so we can be charitable, eh?" Michiru's voice grows teasing as she drapes her arms around her strong cousin's tensed shoulders.
"We're here to watch—so let's watch. And besides, dearest," Michiru's pretty pink lips curl in the tease," wouldn't you rather put your hands around me?" Michiru giggles as she watches Haruka's hard stare soften a little in her direction. Michiru mastered long ago, as the two grew up together as children, the art of making her oft-troubled cousin smile. Into the elevator the pair goes, Haruka stealing a final weary glance at the three men returning into the lobby with their luggage.
All right, Michiru, I'll be charitable… But I'm not going to make it easy for them...Especially not him… Haruka smirks in this silent thought as she let Michiru lead her away.
"She's here on purpose, you know that, don't you?" Yaten was ready to whine now more than ever as somehow Seiya had managed to load him down with those silly girls' suitcases (in which there was one slight mix-up, Usagi being so very sure the reddish case was hers and not Seiya's. Hers was a fuchsia pink shade lighter, but she was so sure she popped it open right then and there on her hotel bed ready to display her new Christmas frock—only to find a pair of Seiya's checkered boxer shorts in its stead. But the switch was soon sorted out, with more than a few blushes, the boys now back in their joint room, changing for dinner.
"Who?" Seiya, his one-track mind presently on getting himself cleaned up and changed, digs under the bed for where a pair of errant socks rolled to.
"That Tenou woman, of course! She knew we were coming here." Yaten wrinkles his nose at the brown turtleneck shirt Seiya had just struggled into. Yaten, a fashion conscious person, chose quite a different styled lavender frilled shirt, he sliding into its silkiness and then tying that sweet little ribbon tie around his thin neck. With an approving smile, he nods at his heart-stopping idol good looks in the mirror reflection.
"Are you sure she's a woman? I could've sworn that handshake was—" Seiya's muffled ranting on the subject of "that person" comes from somewhere under the bed.
"Yes. And I believe it was her vehicle trailing ours. I did wonder who that was." Taiki looked quite dapper in a handsome gray suit as he walks back into his own bedroom. Taiki always dressed more conservatively than his two more flamboyant brothers, creating that adult atmosphere about him. He comments to Yaten as he ties expertly his own standard men's tie.
That's not a crack at Yaten's less manly tie, really.
"Well—I don't care! This is our only time off in ages! I'm not gonna let her ruin it!" Seiya, after tug-of-war between red jacket and red suitcase—the expensive suitcase one stitch away from winning—slides on the jacket and flings back his long blue-black ponytail in defiance of Haruka Tenou's wrath.
"You're right, Seiya. Let's just ignore her. But we must still be civil, all right?" Taiki was all for staying out of the woman's hair, but he did have to keep his partners' oft-ill manners in check.
"You can be." Yaten mumbles under his breath, he himself not holding any respect whatsoever for the golden dragon.
"Yaten. Your attitude worries me. There could be a lot of trouble if you bother her. And Seiya, you do realize that it's because of your…interest…in Miss Usagi that-" Taiki begins to play his big brother role for them both.
"I don't care!" Seiya repeats the petulant sentiment again, this time adding to his intensity of emotions a pounding fist against the windowsill that suffers a small crackline as result. Fuming with anger, he gazes out at the increasing starfield while he cuts off Taiki's sound advice with a passion in his voice that makes both Taiki and Yaten exchange a worried look.
"I don't care." Seiya whispers low to the stars, letting himself, as he often did in the nights, become absorbed in their glow. It was the Princess' glow that shined to him through the stars still, and also in the new found gleam of radiant light he had discovered on this earth.
Seiya was now determined even more to not let anyone take her shine away, too.
Not now that he believed he had found someone special…
The Love Mountain Hotel set out a festive dinner for this night before Christmas Eve. Usagi, ChibiChibi-chan, Minako, Rei, and Makoto nearly scarf down every upper-class delicacy in sight. Ami was the only one holding back with some kind of embarrassed dignity. The meal so scrumptious, Minako and Usagi had opted for seconds, at generous Taiki's kind offer. But when ChibiChibi-chan had an accident with her dinner tray before their second helpings arrived, it getting somehow spilled on the woman at the next table over, eager Seiya had come over to aid the apologetic girls. He even volunteered to "help" rub the green beans and ham gravy from the miniskirted woman, nearly getting decked by her muscle-bound fiancé as a result, if not for Taiki's innate apologies to the man on behalf of his clumsy brother.
But otherwise, the evening goes off without a hitch, it seemed, until the orchestra strikes up a more romantic tone than the happy Christmas tunes it had been playing throughout the meal. "The Christmas Waltz" slows the pace of the room for couples to dance to at this Love hotel.
After all, most occupants of the Love Mountain resort were indeed couples, making our girls feel the tiniest bit out of place, each one silently wishing she could cuddle up with the handsome idol of her choice. But none of them were bold enough to ask for a spin around the dance floor. Not even Minako, disenfranchised after her hints fall on Yaten's deafly, bored-with-it-all ears as he contentedly sat in his chair and petted lucky Luna on his lap rather than dance on the floor.
But gentlemanly Taiki does promise to take turns around the dance floor with each of the girls, filling out his name first on their dance cards, his tall, strong, manly arms and perfect, athletic form giving them all dreams to hope for as the first Christmas ballad begins.
"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire
Jack Frost nipping at your nose
Yuletide carols being sung by a choir
And folks dressed up like Eskimos
Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe
Will help to make the season bright
Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow
Will find it hard to sleep tonight
They know that Santa's on his way
He's loading lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh
And every mother's child is gonna spy
To see if Reindeer really know how to fly
And so I'm offering this simple prayer
To kids from one to ninety-two
Though it's been said many times many ways
Merry Christmas to you."
And though Taiki did spend the tiniest bit more of time with Makoto during the majority of the classically romantic "Christmas Song"(she so entranced in the melody her mind can't help but sing along as they danced), he made up for it later with Rei and Minako and even Ami in the next, more upbeat holiday themed songs. Although, none of the four girls felt that chivalrous Taiki was especially interested in them, the young man was really just being the perfect gentleman, and not having any of them as his favorite in particular, treating them all the same. Sigh.
Now Usagi had quite a different problem.
"Hey, Bunhead, whatd'ya say?" After watching his brother enchant all of these and every other female in the hall (even some of those believed to be happily attached—ahem), Seiya decides to do some "enchanting" of his own. The natural dancer rhythmically moves across the room to where Usagi was still busily feeding ChibiChibi's bottomless pit. Children took an inordinately long time to eat, and even longer in the cleaning up. Seiya offers a hand out to Usagi just as ChibiChibi finishes off her last donut, chocolate fingers waving in the air before she drifted off to a nap on the booth seat.
"What? Me…Dance to this?" Usagi looks incredulously at the sea of waltzing couples, Taiki and Ami flying by her awed eyes. "Seiya, you know I can't dance very we—elll!" Usagi lets out a yelp as Seiya grabs her wrist and leads her out to the dance floor.
"Never say 'I can't' to me, remember?" Seiya's indomitable will was something Usagi admired in him greatly, she learning recently that "can't" was an impossible word in the starry-eyed rock star's dictionary—and so was "no" it seemed, Usagi never able to escape his forced-on whims. But more and more she found herself enjoying their sparring times together, Seiya's attentions and zest for life giving her lonely soul a lifeline to grab onto in the dark days when Mamo-chan was…
Wait. It's not Mamo-chan's scent. It's not his touch. And yet…Usagi's eyes glaze over at the memories vivid of being held like this in her adored Mamo-chan's arms, of waltzing away with him. Of letting him lead her wherever he would as another man's strong arms hold her in much the same way, letting her feel beautiful, admired, so warm, and most of all… special…Usagi's lost thoughts suddenly stop short as Seiya's waltzing—okay, it was a little too spirited to ever be called waltzing, more on the lines of a smooth, slow dance— abruptly ceases when a hard tap comes to his shoulder.
"When a man gets tapped on the shoulder, it means he's supposed to let the next man take over the dance." A low voice says threateningly after Seiya seems unwilling to give up his grip around Usagi''s thin waist.
"You said the next man," Seiya smirks the engendered swipe right in Haruka's face, though he was still a tiny bit uncertain of the perplexing question as to this person's actual sex. For "she" was fully decked out right now in a man's black tuxedo, tall and confident, and not looking all that feminine at all.
But as Seiya knew quite intimately, appearances can be deceiving.
"Just get out of my way, Kou." The same anger flashes in her eyes—Her! There I'm getting used to it!—Seiya smirks as Haruka simply shoves him out of the way, taking Usagi's confused form into the safety of her arms and back around onto the dance floor.
"See ya 'round, Bunhead. I think we'll call it a night since you've now got other company." The nasty way Seiya and Haruka exchange looks as he simply leaves the dining room dance hall, with Taiki and Yaten close behind, makes Usagi feel a certain sadness inside. All the Christmas cheer she was feeling earlier ebbing away.
"Haruka-san, why can't we all be friends? They're really very nice boys! Really." Usagi asks with a hopeful face up as the taller woman spins her around the dance floor. Usagi feels once again the strength of a man holding her—but there was a difference, she could feel it. Haruka wanted to protect her, to set her right, to keep her safe, and Seiya…
What did Seiya want?
"Didn't I tell you to beware of wolves, Kitten? And make no mistake, little princess, this one is a wolf. I just can't stand by and watch your beautiful innocence being stolen awa-" Haruka tries to explain her harsh position, looking directly into her princess' gorgeous crystal eyes, seeing angry tears spring suddenly from behind them at her hard words.
"Stop! Stop it! Seiya's not like that! He's not! He's my very special friend! Please be nicer to him, Haruka-san! I want us all to be friends!" And with that outburst, Usagi squirms from Haruka's surprised grip, hurrying to the elevator, and then right up to her room, bursting into tears before she even got there.
Really! Why can't we all get along? I can't stand all this fighting! Oh Mamo-chan! You would know what to do. You would know what to say to make everything better. Oh Mamo-chan, I miss you so much! I want to be with you right now! Usagi's tears flow bitterly as she lies crumpled on her bed in her new, bright orange sweater, wishing for everything to be as it was, for Mamo-chan to be able to come and hold her in his arms and—
"Usagi? Open up!"
"Usagi-chan? You in there?"
"Hey girlfriend, let us in."
"Oh Usagi-chan, don't cry."
Four dear voices come to her side door as Usagi opens the adjoining door to find Makoto, Minako, Ami, and Rei all standing there, concern on their gently smiling faces.
"Hey, Usagi-chan, you made Haruka-san feel really bad down there." Makoto says tenderly, all four of them seeing the hurt and worry evident on their tough golden friend's face at her actions that caused her princess pain.
"I'm sure she didn't mean to be so mean about Seiya-kun," Minako smiles the lie, she herself believing that Haruka did intend to be—she and Seiya seeming to have some quarrel between them.
"Yeah, you know how Haruka-san can get about men". Not that I can blame her about this one. Rei herself was having doubts about Usagi's growing relationship with that wild boy rocker, but she wouldn't be as bold as Haruka to come right out and say it so profoundly.
"So you guys think it'll be all right? I like for everybody to get along," Usagi's teary face looks up to her cherished ones with hope.
"Of course it will be Usagi-chan! Christmas Eve Eve is no time for crying!" Ami smiles in her own "never give up" way, making a small smile come over Usagi with the four girls' confidence.
"Yeah! And to cheer you up we decided to bring you some early presents! Aren't you lucky?!" Minako pops open the bag she was carrying, handing out to each girl their gift-wrapped package.
"I made them all myse—oh, hee, hee…" Minako was about to take full credit for the darling little plushie doll ornaments, chibi-modeled of each of the girls in Christmas garb.
"Oh! So cute!" Usagi grabs the one of her when she spots a little plush of Mamo-chan peeking out from underneath.
Oh, Mako-chan, you didn't forget him! Thank you!
"Mako-chan helped, of course. Aren't they too darling!" Minako bubbles as Makoto sighs with a smile. She did nearly everything in the construction of these cuties, but if Minako wanted to take some credit…
"Here!" Minako goes dashing in between rooms in the wink of an eye, returning with a tiny little fir tree in a pot.
"The cute clerk down at the check-in desk let me borrow this. It's a crime to be this beautiful, isn't it, girls? Men do whatever you say," Minako sighs in awe of her own infamous beauty.
"Right, Minako-chan." Rei rolls her eyes at the ditz blonde.
"I'll bet you and ChibiChibi-chan will love decorating this tree together with these dollies. When she wakes up in the morning, that is." Ami smiles over the child in her arms.
"Dollies! Dollies!" ChibiChibi awakens at the mere word, crying out in glee as Ami hands ChibiChibi her own plush CHIBICHIBI-CHAN, who was promptly smudged with chocolate dessert still on the baby's hands.
Oh, well.
"You guys are the best! This'll be so much fun!" Giggling just like ChibiChibi, Usagi forgets all her troubles again for the moment, playing dollies with ChibiChibi-chan and gossiping with the girls as they all snack on some cookies Makoto fortuitively swiped from the party downstairs. Ami brushes out Usagi's long hair as Usagi deflects Rei's verbal attacks with a feisty smile.
The five girls laugh the rest of the evening away long after ChibiChibi had fallen asleep atop of a fuzzy, living breathing Luna pillow. Luna sighs wondering how she always got slept upon. It was now a miffed Artemis' turn to laugh at her misfortune.
The hour growing late, a hug from each of her friends making her feel warm and happy inside her uncertain soul again, Usagi prepares for bed. That meant having the joy of dressing a tired out ChibiChibi in her frilly sky blue pajamas. Sigh.
That job finally done, Usagi goes to her window, a gleaming shooting star seeming to call to her as it steals across the night sky.
"Look, ChibiChibi-chan! A shooting star!" Usagi excited at the romantic sight, thrusts open the big window, ignoring the bitter cold like a tiny schoolgirl again. Kneeling, Usagi folds her hands together in a prayer as the cool wind kisses her tender cheek.
"I'll make a wish upon this shooting star. Tonight I wish…Tonight… I wish…" her happy chattering grows sad for what this child of the moon truly wished for was so very far, a continent or two in the way…
"Mamo-chan…" She whispers to the shooting star as it makes its way across the sky, she wishing she could climb aboard it, next stop America.
Suddenly Usagi glances up from the tears also threatening to fall, just now noticing the silent figure of little ChibiChibi gazing up at her in awe, her big blue eyes wide with …something…
…something like understanding.
"ChibiChibi-chan! Why aren't you sleeping like a good little girl?" Taking a deep breath, Usagi smiles away her tears for the child's sake, not wanting to cry in front of her.
"ChibiChibi?" The munchkin blinks up at her, sweetly hopeful.
"All right then," Usagi couldn't help but like something about this small girl, falling under the spell of her entrancing blue eyes. She scoots up a little footstool and lifts the little girl up on top of it. Copycat ChibiChibi bounces into a kneel, following Usagi's movements and clasping her tiny hands under her chin, mimicking Usagi in prayer.
"Make a wish on the shooting star, ChibiChibi-chan. See it up there? See it?" Usagi points to the star shooting across the sky, its brightness flowing over the earth, only likened to her own glimmer.
And someone else whose eyes were always to the stars, too notices both the one making its way across the sky and the glimmering of the one shining in the windowsill he just happened to be next to.
"What are you looking at, Seiya?" Yaten asks, continually questioning his brother's motives as he changed into his nightshirt. Seiya quickly fixes his gaze back to the star in the sky, and purposely away from the next window, he already getting enough agita tonight over this from all sides, especially from that golden-haired blank-blank-blank.
"Shooting star." Seiya says in that spacey way as he opens the window wider to breathe in the fresh cold air he so much longed he could be part of again in this moment—and shoot across the sky like that star again. Someone was wishing upon
"Oh." In a small voice, Yaten too was caught up in the moonlight. Going to his knees at the windowsill, a devout look of peace washes over his usually angry features as he puts his hands together, praying for the Princess to return to them soon.
Smiling at how his two unalike brothers could both be so affected by the starlight, Taiki finishes setting out Seiya's nightclothes. Moving to the window, he, too, was able to be absorbed in the star's radiance.
But in moving towards the window, Taiki, unlike totally devoted Yaten, could see what was going on. He, being a man now also, was able to pick up Seiya's wandering eyes from the stars as Seiya's intent gaze again peeks over to where a certain blonde Bunhead head was busily making wishes upon the same star.
Her eyes were closed with that dreAmi expression on her face, and her little fuchsia companion was mimicking her with one eye peeking open to see Usagi's giddy chattering to the wishing star. The indigo cat was the only one seeming to notice Seiya's peeping tom gaze, the feline looking quite flustered about it, worry written on her kitty features.
Oh Seiya, what will it take to make you learn? Taiki shakes his head at his flighty sibling, unable to suppress a knowing smirk in Seiya's direction. Taiki's gaze then travels between his two disparate brothers, one longing for the past of the world they once knew, the other ready to jump feet first into the present of this uncertain one.
Princess, where are you? In such a situation, you would know what to tell them. You would know what to do. Taiki makes his own wish upon the descending star, and prays that the miracle they've been desperately yearning for, would soon come to pass.
But the star above this night was not a normal "wishing star". This piece of light from the far reaches of a galaxy foreign had purposely traveled to this one. It, too, was in search of something… Or someone in particular with a far less than hopeful purpose within its deranged mind.
Galaxia…I won't allow you to live. Even if it takes the rest of me you've already stripped away—I will destroy every piece of you. Falling to the snowy countryside, breaking the pristine beauty, a lone star sinks deep into the ground on this still night, biding its time and limited energy until the force that had drawn it to this distant rural star would come within its grasp.
It's been so very long— but I have finally found you. You cannot hide from me. You can never escape…I will have my revenge for all that you've stolen away from me…
…Sister…
A golden luster glints its blackness in the soft white snow.
Black gold.
