Chaotic Waters Act 2, Chapter 1: Rising Fire and Falling Future.
In your arms, I'm finally home,
The wind's gentle embrace, I'm no longer alone.
You chase away the fear, that lingered for so long,
With you next to me, I've found where I belong.
Haruka smiled as Michiru stirred in her sleep, nuzzling into the blonde's shoulder with a quiet murmur. To think that the girl she'd fallen for in just a few days had been the very same one she'd fell for over ten years ago. She was a different person now, less hyper and wild and had been hurt farfarmore than Haruka liked, but she could still see a small glimmer of the girl she used to know buried deep within now that she knew to look. The fact that they were both senshi was just icing on the cake really, she wouldn't have to make excuses for pulling a disappearing act, or hide why she was hurt, not that a youma had ever hurt her that bad.
Haruka had taken the teal haired girl back to her apartment and Michiru had passed out not long after. She had planned on putting the girl in her bed and letting her sleep, but the other girl had just quietly, almost in a whisper, pleaded for her to stay, so she had.
Of course the both of them transforming back into their civilian clothes had made the blonde notice that she somehow wasn't wearing her binder, something she still couldn't figure out considering she had no memory of taking it off.
She carefully brushed some hair away from the other girl's forehead, shivering as the girl's body pressed up against hers and warm breath brushed against her neck."If I had been born male, I would be so gods-damned hard right now."She thought with some amusement."Would definitely have been better than having to deal with a period every month...then again I doubt I'd be able to pull off as many outfits as I can being born female."She might not care about her appearance as much as some of her classmates, but she did like to look good damnit.
A whimper pulled her away from her thoughts as the teal haired girl in her arms curled up tighter and started to shake, tears streaming down her face. "Don't go...Chi-chan...can't leave me after..." She heard the girl whisper, her heart jumping into her throat in response.
Of course the first thing the teal haired girl had remembered had to have been Chihiro, and then to find out that she had remembered three years too late? Haruka couldn't even imagine how the teal haired girl was feeling right now.
She'd let Hibari know that she'd found Michiru, and that the teal haired girl was safe before taking the shorter girl to her apartment, that was when she found out that the yakuza princess had been manipulating both her and the girl in her arms. She wasn't sure how to feel about that to be honest.
On the one hand, her old friend had been doing it to help their long lost sister, but on the other hand the way she'd gone about it had been wrong and manipulative in the extreme.
She sighed and shook her head, lightly trailing her hand up and down the other girl's arm. She'd felt the scars on the girl's back the last time she had been in her apartment and didn't want to accidentally trigger the girl into a nightmare...well a worse one. "Shhh, I've got you." She whispered, hoping her voice would help fight away the nightmare the girl was having.
Slowly, the teal haired girl relaxed once more, her tears stopping not long after.
"At least me and the others got to say goodbye to Chihiro, she didn't even get that."It wasn't like they could just go back in time and give her that chance after all."Well, Pluto might be able to, but I doubt she'd let Michiru go back. That woman gets pissed off at just the mention of time travel in movies and books, actually doing it might just make her head explode."
Unbeknownst to the blonde, the reason the Guardian of Pluto was so against time travel was actually because she'd done it before. In her youth, the woman had travelled to the past to speak with one of her earlier incarnation to get advice. She actually succeeded, managing to travel nearly two thousand years into the past and making it to the door just outside the previous Guardian's room before she'd been caught.
Of course the punishment she received after her father, Kronos himself, delivered her back to her mother carrying her by the scruff of her Guardian Initiate garb like a kitten had made sure to...impress on her the desire to never do such a thing again.
It had also impressed on her behind the desire to not sit down for a month.
A shiver from the other girl once more pulled the blonde from her thoughts."Is she cold, or is it her dream?"She wondered, pulling the blanket over the teal haired girls shoulders just in case."What happened to you?"That was the question burning in the racer's mind. What could have made the girl forget about them all, could have made her forget who she had been?
Something told her the answer would only serve to enrage her when she finally found out.
Warm. Everything was just...so warm.
"When was the list time I felt like this?"Michiru wondered groggily. Her limbs felt so light it was like they were made of feathers and everything just felt...warm. She shifted, nuzzling closer to the warm pillow with the soothing heartbeat.
Wait...since when did her pillow have a heartbeat?
Now, normally, when most people wake up next to someone while not remembering how they ended up in that situation they tend to react poorly. They lash out at the other person, sometimes attacking them or throwing things at them until they calm down.
Michiru was not most people.
With a movement too fast for most people to catch, she flung herself away from the person she'd been cuddling.
Unfortunately, Michiru was also not very good at thinking things through when suddenly woken up.
Her foot caught on the blanket and she was sent tumbling off of the bed, hitting her head on the floor with a loud crash.
"Fucking...owwwww." She groaned, cradling her throbbing skull.
A familiar chuckle drew her attention to the blonde laying on her bed, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "You okay?" She asked, her lip twitching like she was fighting to keep a smirk off of her face.
"Haruka? What are you doing in my-" It all came back to her, their fake date, the photographs, her realization of who she used to be, Chihiro having died before she even remembered her, the fall, and then finally, their kiss. "-oh."
"Oh." The blonde repeated back, giving the teal haired girl a soft look and a nod.
"Did...did we really...? She asked hesitantly, brushing her fingers against her lips.
"Mhm" The other girl confirmed with a nod. "We did."
"Oh."
The blonde frowned and propped herself up with her arm, looking at the teal haired girl with a surprisingly vulnerable expression. "Is that...okay?"
"Y-yeah, I just...that was the first time I ever kissed someone I wanted to." The cursed girl responded, warmth spreading across her cheeks as she looked away.
The vulnerability on Haruka's face washed away as she reached out her hand to cup Michiru's cheek. She didn't try to make the girl look at her, just offered her touch in a comforting gesture that the teal haired girl returned by leaning into her touch, closing her eyes. "You make it sound like other people have kissed you when you didn't want them to."
"..."
"I see..."
"...I still don't remember a lot...just Chihiro and some bits and pieces." The teal haired girl said, looking into the blonde's eyes. There was a frailty in her own that Haruka had never seen, as if the girl before her were a cracked piece of glass that would shatter if anything were not to handle her with care.
She wanted to kill whoever had put that look there.
"That doesn't matter." What else could she say? What else could she do other than provide some small comfort? "I fell for you before I found out who you used to be." She leaned forward, pressing her forehead against the teal haired girl's own. "No matter who you decide you are. Kasumi, Michiru, or even someone else entirely...I won't leave, I'll still be right here so long as you want me to be."
"What can I even say to that?"Michiru pulled away, looking away from the love she could see in the blonde's eyes. "I..."
"It's okay." The blonde said softly, smiling gently. "You don't have to say or do anything if you're not ready to. We can take things as slow as you need to." She pulled her hand away and laid back down, relaxing her muscles. "...you gonna stay there on the floor?"
Well the floorwasa bit uncomfortable...maybe a few more minutes in bed with the racer wouldn't hurt. She could deal with the consequences later.
-?-
"So your plan seems to have worked."
"So far at least."
"Will you tell them, who you used to be?"
"If they ask, I'll tell them." Hibari said simply, taking a sip from her tea. "I doubt they will though, Haruka and Michiru have no reason to suspect that I remember the old days."
"Youdiduse healing magic on Haruka."
"Haruka never saw me do it, for all they know all I did was punch them to get them to focus." The blonde explained, looking up at the ceiling.
"It's interesting...I never knew you could use healing magic back then. If memory serves you were more proficient with daggers and poison than magic."
"..."
"Not gonna tell me?"
"It's not important, whatever reasons who I used to be had for learning or doing what she did are irrelevant. I'm me, not her."
"I suppose that's true enough, even of us Guardians." Melinoe mused, taking a drink of her own tea. "After all, you don't look a thing like how you used to before."
"Is it?"
"Hm?"
"Is that really the case with you all?" Hibari looked the ancient woman in the eye intensely, as if she were trying to pull out every one of her secrets with her gaze alone. "I've been thinking about this for a while now, you Guardians just don't make any sense."
Melinoe paused, setting down her cup. "What do you mean?"
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's not normal for people to remember their past lives, right?"
"No, it's not. Technically speaking only Guardians truly "remember" their past lives naturally. What I did for you and the other one was imbue you two with the memories of your past incarnations with a spell."
"Right, but in the old days, the Guardians were chosen at random by the planets, right?"
"...What are you getting at?"
Hibari looked into her tea, chewing on her cheek as she tried to find the right words. "I've gone over my past selves' memories, something was bothering me and I couldn't put my finger on it. I still can't quite make sense of some of it, but your comment just now made me realize something."
"Which is?"
"I don't look anything like I used to. "She" doesn't look anything like she used to." Hibari looked up, piercing the ancient woman with her gaze. "But Haruka and Michiru are damn nearidenticalto Ziaza and Nerida. Even the Inners are almost perfect replicas of their past selves, save for a few cosmetic things that could be explained by them being reincarnated as Terrans instead of their original planet's race."
"That's because..." She frowned, crossing her arms. Come to think of it, whywerethe Senshi nearly identical to the Guardians?
"On top of that, I was pouring over the history of the Empire on that Plutonian data crystal you loaned me. I couldn't find a single image ofanyof the Guardians before your generation, not even a vague reference to their appearance."
That couldn't be right. That data crystal had had the entire contents of the Plutonian Royal Library downloaded onto it. For there not to be a single record of the past Guardian's appearance...
Her eyes dilated.
"The information was erased." That was the only possible explanation, otherwise it would mean...
Hibari nodded. "That was the conclusion I reached as well. I don't know why, but someone went to a lot of trouble to destroy those records."
"But, why would someone erase something like that? What past Guardians look like...that's nothing compared to the other secrets the Empire had, several of which I know are still recorded on that crystal!"
"...You gave us our old memories because you needed information about the Cult, things only we knew. Could it have been them?"
The Guardian of Pluto tapped the edge of her cup of tea in thought before slowly shaking her head. "No...that Data Crystal is connected to the repository of the Royal Library in Tartarus, as well as the one in Charon Castle. Evenif, and that's a big if, they managed to access the Library's core in Tartarus, they'd never be able to do the same to the one in Charon Castle."
"Why's that?"
The green haired woman grimaced, lifting her hands in a what can you do manner. "It's hard to explain...the Guardian Castles are...alive in a way."
Hibari frowned, leaning back slightly and crossing her arms. "I knew the Guardian Castles existed, but I didn't think there was anything special about them, I thought they were just a base for each of you."
Melinoe snorted before taking a drink of her tea. "More like our own personal nuclear deterrents."
"...come again?"
"Each Guardian Castle was equipped with three Class V mana-drives, six Class IX barrier generators, two anti-mana beam cannons, four Class VII void rifles, and a Type-Three hyperspace engine." Melinoe explained, shrugging her shoulders. "Each and every one of them could defend against an invading armada, force them to retreat, calculate and travel to their point of origin, obliterate the star system there without so much as a scratch, and be back in time for dinneron their own."
"Who...why in the hell would anyone even make something like that?!"
"Hell if I know." The Guardian muttered, finishing her drink. "In the entire history of the Solarin Empire, the Guardian Castles were never used in that way, truthfully I've only been to mine a couple times myself. None of us were ever dumb enough to eventhinkof messing around with those monstrosities. The only things we ever used them for was a place to sleep when we didn't want to deal with planetary politics or people in general and for accessing the Castle's AI to check on things with another Guardian if they were off in the Outer Reaches."
"...Probably best if we don't mention them to Haruka, they'd probably start laughing maniacally about having an unstoppable space fortress."
"ThatwasZiaza's reaction...well, until Nerida shoved a Martian sausage in her mouth."
"Hilarious mental imagery aside, that still doesn't explain why the cult couldn't have erased the data from your Castle of Doom."
"Well...the Castles were only accessible by us, the Guardians, and the High Priest or Priestess. No-one but us could enter them, unless we physically brought them there, not even my mother, the Queen of Pluto, could enter Charon Castle without Persephone or me." Melinoe explained.
"...so then how did the data get erased from the crystal and why?"
"...I need a stronger drink."
-Juban, Michiru's apartment-
"...You know, this isn't going to help your reputation at school any if our classmates find out." The blonde said wryly, running the tips of her fingers up and down the smaller girl's back while they laid next to each other.
"Don' care, comfy." Gods, the feeling of Haruka's fingers trailing up and down her back..."If this is the result, I need to fall off of more buildings."She thought drowsily. The blonde's fingers on her sensitive scars were sending tingles down her spine, it was almost enough to put her to sleep. A low rumbling sound emanated from her throat as she stretched, the blonde was hitting just the right spots every, single, time!
"Are...are you purring?" Haruka asked with a grin.
Almost immediately, the rumbling sound stopped as a deep blush formed on the cursed girl's face. "No! I wasn't, shut up! I don't purr!"
"You were!" Haruka smirked, leaning her face close to the teal haired girl's. "You're just like a kitten, a little kitty cat."
"Shit, where?!" Flinching, Michiru drew back and looked around the room in a panic. If one of those furry demons was here then she needed to get out! Maybe through the window?
"Hey...wha...ng?"
No the window was too obvious, and the demons could be out there waiting for her! Maybe she should use the Bakusai Tenketsu, go through the floor? They'd never expect that! Then again, she'd have to do it twice, she was on the second floor after all, plus there was Haruka to consider.
Two hands gripped her shoulders and pulled her close to someone, no! They were trying to trap her here with the demons, she needed to get away, needed to escape,neededtogetoutofthePit-
The feeling of soft lips pressing against her own were like a bolt of lightning, tearing her away from the fear and panic that had been terrorizing her mind. A shiver ran down her spine as she realized it was Haruka kissing her, holding her close against her own taller body. Warmth spread throughout her, as a strange fire built low in her body alongside a need to do...something with it. Let it consume her? Put it out before she was consumed? She wasn't sure which one was the right choice, all she knew was that she didn't want the blonde tostop kissing her.
Unfortunately for her, their need to breathe made the blonde pull away, drawing a small whimper from the teal haired girl, much the racer's amusement. "Sorry...you looked like you were spiraling there for a second and that was the only way I could think of to pull you out of it."
"No-" The world left her lips strangled and she cleared her throat, desperately wishing she could clear the red in her cheeks. "-no, it um was good. I mean, it helped!" Gods what was with her? If this kept up her face was going to be visible from space!
"Do you want to talk about what set you off?" Haruka asked softly, stroking the other girl's cheek with her thumb.
The cursed girl looked away, shuddering as phantom sensations of claws dragged against her skin. "I just, really don't like...those things." Was all she said, gesturing vaguely.
"Those things? You mean petnames?"
"No, the um...the animal you said." Gods she was pathetic, what kind of person, let alone man would be afraid of a small animal? "I, it's stupid, I'm being stupid, maybe I should just go." She mumbled, pulling away from the blonde.
"Hey, none of that." Gently, Haruka pulled Michiru back in, running her fingers up and down the other girl's arms. "You're not being stupid. Talk to me, tell what's going on. You don't like cats?" Michiru shivered and shook her head, drawing a frown from the taller girl. "Sorry but...this seems like a bit more than just not liking them." Really it seemed like the girl was morescaredthan anything. Could that be it? Was she scared of cats? "Are you...do you have a fear of them?"
She closed her eyes and shook her head, she didn't want the blonde to know about the Neko-ken, about her weakness. Still, she couldn't stop herself from gripping Haruka's shirt tightly as she trembled at the thought of those...things getting to her, hurting her again.
Haruka just looked down at her, wrapping her arms gently around her once old friend. "...Alright. If you say you aren't, then I'll believe you, but just remember you can talk to me about anything...okay?"
"I can't bother her with my crap...Haruka doesn't deserve to get pulled into all of that." Especially when it came to her problems having to do with Nerima. If anyone from there found out that the two had kissed, not once but twice now, then Haruka would be in danger, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Gods, if the amazons found out then she wouldn't just have to worry about the sometimes boy being injured, but also that her very mind could be altered! If Shampoo or the old Ghoul used that memory altering technique of theirs...
She shuddered and shook her head, that wouldn't happen, she wouldn't let it happen!
"Did you find anything out?" Mamoru asked, setting a cup of coffee in front of the exhausted Rei. The shrine maiden looked like she hadn't slept in a week, maybe more with the bags under her eyes.
"Nothing that makes any sense." Was her reply as she drank deeply from the hot cup of caffeine. "The Sacred Fire only showed me flashes, bits and pieces that don't seem connected. "Four gems colored red, green, blue, and clear, two figures, one small and pink, the other tall and dark green, and then..."
"And then?"
"...an hourglass and a sword." The shrine maiden finished, shrugging hesitantly. "The gems, hourglass, and sword are warnings I think, those images gave off a feeling of danger."
The older teen frowned and stroked his chin in thought, sitting down at his desk. "But not the figures?"
"No, those two felt..." Rei grimaced and tapped her fingers on her leg. "It's hard to put it into words but if I had to, I'd describe the feeling as something thatcouldbe familiar, but isn't yet."
"Allies maybe?"
"That's what I was thinking." The girl agreed with a nod. "What about you, any luck with the Shitennou?"
"Not even remotely." The Terran prince muttered, running his hand through his hair. "Those four had never heard of anything like what I described we saw." He frowned, grabbing a pencil and absently twirling it between his fingers. "Maybe if we could ask the hologram of Queen Serenity we might learn something else, but...I'd rather not put Usagi through that." That was an understatement, the twin tailed girl had been distraught for days after their visit to the moon, though she'd managed to hide it rather well from the other Senshi."How they haven't figured out that bubbly personality of hers is half-faked is beyond me...then again Ami might suspect something, that girl is terrifying when it comes to catching the little details."He mused. Usagi was an easily excitable girl to be sure, that much was true, but she was also prone to fits of depression from time to time. Dysthymia, or Persistent Depressive Disorder, was what she'd been told she had. Apparently it had started back when she was young, not long before she'd realized that no-one else seemed to be two people working together.
Oh yes, he knew about "Light" and "Dark", he'd seen them, or rather, how they saw themselves, when the blonde had used the Silver Crystal to heal him. It took some getting used to, but he tried to make them both feel seen when he was with her in private. Actually, the first time he'd tried that Usagi had been horrified that he knew and nearly ran out on him, on the middle of their date, at the top of a ferris wheel.
Say what you will about the girl, but when Usagi was determined, not even a force of nature like gravity was enough to stop her.
He'd had to pry her transformation broach out of her hands to keep her from transforming to escape just long enough to explain that he was fine with it and that he wasn't going to tell anyone if she didn't want him to. Even then it'd taken him nearly a month to get her to believe him.
"Not to mention that teleporting off world takes up a good chunk of our reserves." The shrine maiden took another deep gulp of her hot drink, letting out a "tsk" of annoyance when she finished it. "We'd probably burn through the same amount of energy if we fought for an hour straight."
Surprise flashed across Mamoru's face as he heard what the senshi of mars said, his brow furrowing in confusion. "Really? I never seem to run out of energy...come to think of it I know Usagi has more than me, but I've seen her run out before I do."
Rei drummed a quick pattern on her leg as she thought, mulling over the Terran Prince's words. "Maybe it's because we're on Earth? Your powers are connected to it, it'd make sense if there was some kind of advantage for us to fight on our own planets."
Mamoru frowned, thinking about the girl's theory before his eyes widened. "That has to be it, when we went to the moon I felt weaker, almost like I was missing something!"
"Come to think of it, that new senshi, Pluto said something about you being weaker than you should be." The shrine maiden muttered, looking at the teenage boy quizzically.
Once again his face flashed with confusion and surprise before his brow furrowed. "I don't remember that, when was this?"
"Oh, right! I think you were still unconscious at the time from the old Neptune, ah..." She winced, not sure how to finish her sentence.
"Kicking my ass to the moon and back?" He asked in an amused tone. "It's okay, I'm over it...still I wonder why she said it. I know I'm not as strong as you all but I can still fight."
"But you also don't have any attacks other than throwing a rose around." Rei pointed out.
"That's...true I suppose." He grumbled. "It's not like I don't train or anything I just...my powers feel more defensive than all of yours. Even you and Makoto together have a hard time breaking my barriers."
Of course, his barriers were nothing compared to Usagi's when the twin tailed girl put in the effort. It had taken the girl getting distracted by remembering she'd forgotten about a test the next day for all four Inners together to put a crack in it.
Even then, they still hadn't managed to break the damn thing.
"Still...it's weird that you don't have any attacks of your own, evenifyour powers do lean towards the defensive. Even Ami has some attacks and hers aren't nearly as strong as mine or Makoto's." The black haired girl frowned and parted her lips as if to say more, but seemed to think better of it and pressed them back together.
Could it be because Mamoru was the only male among the Senshi? Something like that couldn't possibly be the reason...so whywasthe Terran Prince the weakest of them all?
-Nerima-
It was just another day in Nerima, birds were chirping, kids were laughing, Nabiki was blackmailing people, a normal day really. There was nothing strange about this day aside from nothing strange happening, it was almost like-
ℍℇ ℇ 𖣠ꛤ𖤢ꛘ𖤢𖤀
Nothing was moving anymore.
Nothing was breathing.
Nothing was happening at all.
Every single thing, living or not, was frozen in time all across the world as a massive gate appeared in the sky, the lone thing on the planet that still moved. The doors creaked ominously as they slowly opened further and further. From within the grey depths beyond the gate, a young child with pink hair flew into the frozen world as if shot from a cannon.
The gates pulsed and the child too froze, moments before they crashed into the roof of a Neriman resident with all the force of a meteor. It's job done, the doors of the gate slowly closed, fading away into mist.
-the calm before the storm, but that was silly.
Right?
-(Solar Snippet 2)-
Of all the evils the Senshi defeated, there were two that they could not defeat. No matter what they did, no matter how hard they fought. Even Usagi, for all their power, could do nothing against these mighty foes.
Paperwork and Mornings.
Haruka groaned as the bright light of the sun shined right into her eyes, her head throbbing from the mother of all hangovers. Why had she drank so much last night again?
Oh right, yesterday had been...
Grunting to herself as a particularly bad spike of pain lanced through her skull, she opened her eyes, expecting to see her wives laying on her chest as usual.
She was not expecting to see Usagi in almost see through black lingerie.
She did a double take, rubbing her eyes with the hand that wasn't trapped under the other girl as if to clear away the last dregs of sleep that was making her see things.
Nope, still there...wait where was Mayu and Michiru?
A quick glance around the room showed that they weren't there, though Michiru could have been under their bed again. She had a tendency to hide there when she "went cat", though that didn't happen very often these days unless she was surprised.
The sound of a door opening pulled her away from her thoughts as Mayu walked into their bedroom looking highly amused. "Michiru?" She asked the brunette, mouthing the words so as to not wake up the blonde currently laying on her.
Mayu's eyes glinted with amusement as she pointed to a spot above Haruka on the ceiling. The blonde looked up and had to fight to keep from bursting out into laughter.
There, duck-taped to the ceiling, was her teal haired wife.
"How?" She mouthed to her other wife, her eyes shining with glee.
The former class president just pointed at the girl currently laying on her and then mimed downing a shot.
Huh, apparently Usagi was prone to mischief and pranks when drunk off her ass, who knew.