Chaotic Waters Act 1, Chapter 2: Past Sorrows and New Horizons.
~~~D3S~~~
It was a bright day today, the warm sun bearing down on Nerida as she dozed in the Royal Garden. It wasn't the first time, it wasn't even the hundredth time she had fallen asleep here under Sol's light, she was perfectly safe within the palace walls after all. The multi-barrier force field around the palace was nearly ten times stronger than the one around the city, and that one had kept the city from even getting a scratch when the Grand Storm passed over them ten years ago. Well...according to Father it had kept the city safe, it wasn't like Nerida had ever left the palace and seen for herself. Not once in her sixteen years as of today had she ever left the palace, not even for the Royal Gathering of Planets and Moons!
She knew why she wasn't allowed to leave the palace of course, she wasn't an idiot. She'd heard the gossip of the servants, not to mention the arguments between Father and her siblings, it was because of the Dreams. Once, sometimes three times a month she'd have a Dream that would come to pass. Sometimes they were good...sometimes they weren't. Slowly, she opened her eyes and turned her head to the side where a tombstone sat somberly under the skótos anthērós, a dark purple and black subspecies of the cherry blossom tree found on Terra, no more than a foot from where she lay. The smooth blue stone contrasting with the mint green grass and the black bark of the tree. For what seemed like the hundredth time today she silently stared at the stone, she'd hardly spoken to anyone since that day three years ago, not that she had anything to say...it was her fault after all. With careful gentleness she ran the tips of her fingers over the symbols engraved in the stone, her throat tightening with grief.
Παλλας Νεπτυνε, θιρδ δαυγ-τερ οφ Κινγ Τριτον ανδ Qυεεν Λιβυα, τακεν φαρ τοο σοον.
("Pallas Neptune, third daughter of King Triton and Queen Libya, taken far too soon.")
She'd been there since sunrise, barely moving unless it was to trace the symbols on the tombstone. Her eyes flicked to her left when she heard the sound of boots crossing the grass to her, but went back to the tombstone once the newcomer spoke.
{"What are you doing little sister?"} Theseus, her eldest brother and the crown prince asked, dressed in his usual military garb, two crossing waves on each side of his collar signifying his rank as a general. He sighed when she didn't respond, looking up at the tree with a soft smile. {"Do you remember how much Pallas loved to play in this tree? She would always hide in it's branches, or make flower crowns out of it's blossoms."}
"..."
{"Sister..."} He paused before sighing once more and sitting cross legged on the grass next to her. {"Nerida...it's been three years, don't you think-you've barely said a word to anyone, you haven't even told us what happened."}
"..."
{"It was Mother, wasn't it?"} He asked softly, nodding slightly to himself when she tensed. {"I thought that might be the case...was it because of the Visions?"}
She flinched and turned her head to glare at him, a cold fury in her eyes daring him to say one more word.
{"I thought so...it wasn't your fault you know."}
{"...That's not true."} She rasped, her voice rough and dry from disuse as she glared at her brother. {"She was, she was trying to help me, and died for it."}
{"I know...I might not know the details, but I know you, and I knew our sister. There is nothing she wouldn't have done to help you."} Theseus said softly, giving Nerida's arm a small squeeze with his calloused hand. {"I've managed to piece some things together, Mother's strange behavior towards you, that abhorrent attempt to marry you out of the family, and your awakening as our planet's Guardian, they're all connected."} He frowned and seemed to think about what he was about to say before nodding slightly to himself. {"From what Rhode has been able to find out, there seems to be some kind of cult in each of the realms, we didn't even know they existed until Pallas' death. We don't know who they are or what they want, but they're on every planet and moon that has had a Guardian in the past, they seem to be against the very idea of the Guardians, or rather the fact that only the Guardians can wield the power that they do. Mother was apparently a member and had been for a long time, even before she married Father, which is concerning for a number of reasons."}
{"...Rhode is helping you?"} Nerida asked, nearly whispering. {"She hasn't...she hasn't even looked at me since..."}
Theseus nodded, laying his hands on his thighs as he looked at Nerida, nearly flinching at the incredible amount of pain reflected in his youngest sister's eyes. {"She is...she regrets what she said to you that day...she just doesn't know how to apologize, you know how she is."} He squeezed her arm again before tearing his eyes away from the tree to look at her, seeming to skip over the tombstone. Nerida had long since noticed how he never looked at the tombstone directly. {"At first I think she started helping to find some evidence that you were responsible, but she never found any, just the opposite in fact."}
{"...I never blamed her for being angry, Pallas was her twin, and I never spoke of what happened."}
{"Why didn't you tell anyone?"} Theseus asked quietly, frowning a little when he saw Nerida seem to shrink in on herself.
{"...I'm a coward."} She replied, her voice almost silent as a haunted look entered her eyes. She winced slightly as her throat grew uncomfortable, talking, even a little, after not speaking for a long time was apparently not a good idea. {"I just wanted to forget what happened, and never remember."}
~~~D3E~~~
Michiru Kaioh, or rather Ranma in disguise, walked through the hallways of Juban High School as she looked for class 1C, the slightest bit of a frown marring her face. Back when she had first come up with this insane plan, she'd decided she'd needed to not only have a disguise that looked convincing enough to fool people she was someone else, but acted different enough that no one would be able to recognize her as well. This was why she had made the decision to use female pronouns for herself, even in her own thoughts, while in this persona. Of course she would do the opposite when it came to Michiru's "brother" that lived with her. The two personas were as vastly different from Ranma as they could be, for example where as Ranma didn't really care what he ate, so long as it wasn't Akane's cooking, "Michiru" in particular didn't like kikurage or namako. There were other things, like how Ranma did his best to avoid getting splashed, but "Michiru" would try to get on the swim team as soon as they started recruiting in a couple weeks. It was a bunch of little differences, but she hoped it would be enough to make people, especially the old ghoul, avoid taking a closer look. It was actually the little differences between the fake identities and her real one that made her convinced she needed Konatsu's help. The kunoichi had gotten scary good at disguises, in fact the only way she could tell that it was her a lot of the time was by reading Konatsu's ki and even that was getting harder and harder to do as the kunoichi perfected her skills.
"There you are." She said to herself as she found the right room, sliding the door open and walking into the classroom before shutting the door as quietly as possible. She could hear the usual chatter coming from her new temporary classmates, the boys talking about sports, video games, and the occasional anime. The girls on the other hand seemed to be mostly talking about fashion and some guy from a magazine that went to school here apparently, though there were some outliners of both genders talking about various other things. "Least there's no Hentai Horde here." She mused. It didn't take long for people to notice her, something she noticed from the way the conversations seemed to quiet down and then new whispered ones began. "Some of them aren't even trying to be subtle." Shaking her head in slight annoyance she looked around the class to see if she could spot which desks were empty, an impossible task considering there were several students crowded around one desk, friends most likely. "Maybe I should just ask someone?" She wondered, nearly jumping out of her skin when she felt someone place their hand on her shoulder. Without thinking, she flinched away from the contact, feeling that sick feeling in her gut she always got whenever someone touched her without her permission...come to think of it when was the last time someone had actually asked if she was okay with being touched before they did it?
It was a girl that had tried to get her attention, one of her new classmates going off of the uniform she was wearing. She was taller than Ranma by a couple inches, not that that was hard at her meager five foot nothing, with black hair that went down to mid back and green eyes that had...something in them, something that made Ranma's stomach twist uncomfortably. "You're the new transfer right? Ishioka-sensei said you'd be transferring today and asked me to help you get settled." The girl said with a gentle smile, taking her hand off of Ranma's shoulder and putting it at her side slowly. "I'm the class president for 1C, the name's Sasaki Mayu." She said helpfully.
"...Kaioh Michiru, it's a pleasure Sasaki-san." Ranma...no Michiru said demurely, kicking herself internally to remember to think of herself as Michiru for now.
"Kaioh-san huh?" Mayu mused, giving Michiru a once over. "Can't say that doesn't fit." She said, shaking her head in amusement.
"I'm...sorry?"
"Don't worry about it Kaioh-san." Mayu stated, waving Michiru's question away with a shake of her head. "Anyway, let's get you settled, that seat over there-" She started, pointing to a desk in the middle and slightly to the left. "-is the only one free which is unfortunate because that puts you next to Tenoh-san." She sighed.
"Is there something wrong with this..Tenoh-san?" Michiru asked after a moment, struggling with herself to blurt out the first random thing to pop in her head and actually remain polite.
"Not at all." Mayu shook her head in amusement. "He just has a rather large amount of...fans that seem to think he belongs to them." She rolled her eyes, clearly showing how she felt about the supposed "fans".
"Sounds familiar." Michiru thought to herself dryly. "I suppose they will not take kindly to me sitting there?" she asked, looking around the room subtly and immediately noticing the occasional hate filled glare being sent her way. "Yeesh, and I thought the Hentai Horde was bad."
""Not in the least." There was amusement in Mayu's voice, she'd seen Michiru's search around the room. "Thankfully no-one in our class is dumb enough to try anything, not when their "precious prince" might see."
"Do...do they really call him that?" Michiru asked incredulously.
"Unfortunately yes, they do. It doesn't help that Tenoh-san is, well, a bit of a flirt." Shaking her head slightly at seeing Michiru's eyebrow raise. "Don't get me wrong, Tenoh-san is really polite and respectful. If you ask him not to flirt with you again he won't, and he's the first person to step in to help someone if they're being harassed, but he does tend to flirt with a lot of the girls here." She explained. "It started out as a game in middle school, some of the other boys dared him to flirt with Nishikawa-san-" She nodded at a brown haired girl with a red bow tying off her ponytail that was glaring at Michiru harshly through her glasses. "-and it kind of snow-balled from there. He did let her know it was a joke before he did it, but apparently she wasn't listening or she didn't care, because she founded the "Prince Tenoh Fanclub" which is why you need to watch out for her in particular."
"So Mousse as a high school girl without weapons or training, I can deal with that." Michiru nodded, mostly to herself as she opened her mouth to speak, only to stop when the classroom door opened and a boy walked in, distracting her.
He was tall, almost six feet if she had to guess, with short blond hair and deep blue eyes on a rather androgenous face, and he walked with a grace that Michiru could recognize in her sleep, he knew some martial arts. A good amount too going off of how he moved and the subtle muscle Michiru could see in his build. While the uniform he was wearing did a good job of hiding how much muscle he had, she could see the lower parts of his arm thanks to the short sleeves of his uniform and there was definitely a good amount of muscle there. Oddly enough, there was something...familiar about the boy, like she'd met him a long time ago but had forgotten. It was definitely possible, she had met quite a few people during her training journey with her pops.
"Speak of the devil." Mayu muttered as she nodded her head at the new arrival. "That's Tenoh-san."
"Somehow I just know this guy's gonna to cause trouble for me." Michiru mused. She was about to turn her head back to Mayu when the newcomer turned to look at the new student someone had pointed out to him. The instant their eyes met it was like someone had pulled the ground out from under Michiru, she drew in a sharp breath as a flood of emotions she couldn't process surged through her, nearly bowling her over. It took her delving into the Soul of Ice to calm down, the rush of emotions were just too much without the Amazon technique. "I can see why they call him a Prince." She said coolly, turning back to look at Mayu. "What the hell was that? Since when do I freak out when some random guy walks in?"
"Don't let his fans hear you say that." Mayu said with a small smile. "They might just-oh shoot here comes Ishioka-Sensei. You should get to that desk, you do not want to be on his bad side, trust me."
Classes at Juban High were...weird. For one thing there was the obvious lack of random insanity disturbing class, but the teachers were different too, the way they explained things actually made sense, the subjects themselves seemed easier and less complex than at Furinkan, for once Michiru was actually understanding what they were talking about! It was just...weird, she expected to have a little easier time without all of the distractions, but this much? She'd never had this easy of a time at school before. Of course, that wasn't to say there weren't ANY distractions, she'd felt the glares of several students on her all day, and Tenoh kept looking at her out the corner of his eye, it was honestly a little annoying. It was taking nearly everything she had to stay in character and not glare back at them all.
"Don't glare at the idiots, remember you aren't Ranma right now, you're Michiru and Michiru does not fly off the handle and throttle people for annoying her." Michiru growled to herself internally, taking a deep breath as she wrote down notes for her class.
"Sorry about them." Came a soft and smokey voice from her left that felt...familiar and comforting. It was Tenoh-san, looking at her with his deep blue eyes with an apologetic look on his face. "I've asked them time and time again not to do this with people, but they never listen." He frowned then and his eyes darkened, like storm clouds covering the sun. "It's getting ridiculous, I can't even talk to anyone, guy or girl, without them throwing a fit about it."
"You know...you only have yourself to blame for your predicament." Michiru said after a moment, giving Tenoh a smirk. It wasn't cocky like her usual one, instead it felt...playful? "What is going on with me?"
"How so?" Tenoh replied, frowning deeper as he glared at her. "I never asked them to become a group of rabid fangirls."
"No, but you could have said no to the game in the first place." Michiru laughed softly at the stunned look on Tenoh's face at her reply, covering her mouth demurely. "Sasaki-san told me about it." She explained.
"Aahh, I was wondering how you knew about that." Tenoh chuckled, the sound sending shivers down Michiru's spine. Now she knew for sure that she had met this boy before, his laugh was too familiar for her not to have heard it before. Why it had such an effect on her she had no idea, no-one else had ever gotten this reaction out of her. "It's true I could have said no, but the guys wouldn't leave me alone about it when they heard a rumor that I was good at flirting, I don't even know where that rumor started!" He muttered, shaking his head in annoyance. "Trust me, there was no-other way to get them to stop, you have no idea how competitive guys can be when it comes to stupid stuff."
"Buddy, if only you knew." Michiru snickered internally. "You'd be surprised." She said with a knowing smile, making Tenoh look at her quizzically.
"...hey, have we-" Tenoh started to say before getting interrupted by the bell. "-never mind, until next time Little Pearl." He said with a smirk, turning away from her and walking out of the class. Had he waited, just a second more before turning he would have seen Michiru tense up like a coiled spring and grip her pencil hard enough for it to snap like a toothpick.
Those two words, said by that voice, with those eyes looking at her, she'd heard them before. It was maddening that she couldn't remember where she had heard them before, and she knew she had. But they were wrong somehow, like they had been spoken by someone who wasn't the person who had said them to her originally and yet they were, because they were said with that voice. Something deep within her raged at being called that by Tenoh and not , how dare this...this skirt-chaser call her that. Only _ could call her that, no-one else was allowed to utter those words at her! She was going to tear him apart, no, she was going to do something much worse. She wasn't going to lay a finger on him, she would tell her older siblings and let THEM beat the crap out of the boy for desecrating those words! She was just about to chase after him to give him a piece of her mind when she was suddenly startled by a hand waving in front of her face.
It was Sasaki-san, looking at her in concern. "Are you okay Kaioh-san?" She asked. "You've been staring blankly at the wall for five minutes."
Michiru's head spun as the righteous fury she had felt not seconds ago vanished without a trace, like it had never even been there to begin with. "I...yes-" she began, clearing her throat and shaking her head to clear the cobwebs. "-yes I'm fine. I was just lost in thought for a moment."
"Ok...if you're sure." The class president obviously thought she was lying if the disbelief in her voice was anything to go by. Thankfully she chose not to press the issue, not that Michiru could give her an explanation. Her gratitude quickly vanished and was replaced with not a small amount of nervousness at the class president next words. "Come on, we have gym next."
"...Fuck."