Chaotic Waters Act 2, Chapter 2: Manga Life and Team Troubles.
Hold my hand, let's dive into the unknown.
Lost in the twilight, together we've grown.
Catch the dusk, where our dreams collide.
Underneath the evening sky, we'll no longer hide.
Eight hundred ninety five years. That was how long ago her body had stopped aging.
It wasn't like she hadn't noticedsomethingwasn't right with her, even with the slowed ageing common to the citizens of Crystal Tokyo. Granted, it had taken her longer than it should have, nearly thirty years before the problem had become clear to her.
While the ageing of those in Crystal Tokyo was slowed, there were still immutable laws of magic that forced the body to grow normally until the body reached five years of age.
Her mother had said that it was because of a mother's love for their child, where as Aunt Ami said it was the leftover mana in the child's system from being in the womb acting as a defensive barrier against all foreign mana. Personally, she believed her Aunt's explanation more as it did explain why only a mother could cast magic on their child for the first five years, the barrier wouldn't react to anything with the same energy pattern as it had.
Now,normallythe ageing began to slow down at that point and would all but completely stop by the time their physical appearance was that of a twenty four year old. Of course by then the person would be pushing nearly a hundred and seventy, but that was besides the point. Either way a child would normally look around ten by the time they turned thirty years old.
But not her.
Even at nine hundred years she still hadn't physically aged a day after she turned five.
This had caused her no end of grief, what with the teasing of children far,faryounger than her, to say nothing of her own body fighting her every day. With her body unable to age past a certain point, she tried to utilize her mind to stand among those that were her actual age, even with her child-like form. Unfortunately, with her body refusing to grow anymore, her brain wasn't yet fully developed.
She studied twice as heard to learn. She fought twice as hard to keep her emotions in check. She struggled twice as hard to be taken seriously.
And. It. Was. Never. Enough.
No matter what she did, no-one outside of her family saw her as anything other than a child playing at being an adult. Something that was not helped by the fact that she was prone to mood swings and moments of childish logic.
The advice of her parents and aunts (and sometimes uncle in Haruka's case) did little to help.
Her parents told her that she was perfect just the way she was, and everything would be alright eventually.
Aunt Ami told her to study the affects of magic on the body in order to understand and perhaps solve her ageing issue.
Aunt Minako told her to keep a positive attitude.
Aunt Makoto told her to have fun with it, and enjoy looking like a kid.
Aunt/Uncle Haruka told her to slug anyone who talked shit to her and knock out their teeth which was, if she were being honest, her favorite piece of advice.
Aunt Michiru never really gave her any advice or tried to say everything would be okay. The teal haired woman just...sparred with her until she couldn't move anymore and every inch of her body ached. Afterwards the older woman would take her for ice cream and tell her crazy stories about the times she had with her spouses before they were married.
Granted, the woman had kept the stories to those that were safe for a child to hear until her hundredth birthday, and even then staunchly refused to tell anything that could be considered raunchy or scandalous. She'd even grabbed Haruka's ear and yanked it down hard, giving the poor man a lecture when she'd caught him telling the pinkette a story the teal haired woman didn't thinkanyoneneeded to know about, if she remembered right it had to do with Martial Arts Exotic Dancing or something like that.
As for the last two Outers, Puu and 'Taru...well they were a lot like Aunt Michiru in some ways. They never gave her advice, but instead listened to her and helped her to reach her own conclusions and answers.
For some reason the two of them had always wrinkled their nose in almost the exact same way whenever she called them "Auntie" back when she was much younger, so she'd always just used their nicknames. She was a lot closer to them than she was to the others as well, aside from her parents that is. No matter what was going on, those two always made time for her, even if they were exhausted from their duties.
How they made time for their side jobs on top of everything they did for the System as well as being there for her still baffled her. Just thinking of how those woman kept up with everything they did without collapsing gave her a headache.
She couldn't argue with the results though, not one bit.
Still...as amazing as her family was, they couldn't stop the loneliness she felt at being the only one forever stuck with the body of a child.
Maybe that was the reason things fell apart...the reason so many people had died.
-Nerima-
Everything hurt.
Her bones, her muscles, her skin, even her hair ached like nothing she'd ever felt before. There wasn't one single millimeter of her body that wasn't screaming at her for the sheer idiocy of what she'd done.
"Puu's gonna kill me." She groaned, her raw throat making her voice come out raspy like she hadn't used it in weeks. Who knew using the Gate of time to travel back a few hundred years would feel like she'd been ran over by a transport shuttle?"This is worse than the time Aunt Michiru had me spar with her for two hoursaftercompleting her morning routine."
Her mom hadn't spoken to the teal haired woman for weeks after that particular incident.
"Ah, you've awakened." An elderly voice said from her left, startling her.
Her body instinctively jerked out of the bed and into a combat stance her Aunts had taught her only for her to collapse onto the floor as her body locked up in sheer agony from the pain. What was once a full body ache became a raging inferno of suffering so strong not even her lips would move to let out a scream.
All magic has a price.
That was one of the lessons her Aunt Michiru had drilled into her over and over again to make sure she understood. Apparently it was the first of an ancient set of rules about how magic worked, discovered by a Mercurian in the ancient Solarin Empire and the re-discovered by her Aunt Ami in the late 21st century.
Either way, she hadn't expected it to hurt like a bitch.
Her muscles twitched uncontrollably as she lay collapsed on the floor, her lungs screaming at her to breath even as the rest of her body refused to let her. Was this the price of traveling in time, this unyielding pain?
She barely felt the four jabs to her left side and back before the pain vanished like it had never been there to begin with. She coughed, gasping for air even as she shivered at the alien feeling of pain just disappearing so completely.
"Foolish child, moving suddenly like that in your condition." The voice scolded. She felt something press against her side, a stick maybe, and felt it push her onto her back so she could see the person speaking.
They looked as old as her actual age.
"I don't know what idiocy you've managed to get yourself into, but your ki is just barely holding your body together." The elderly woman growled, glaring down at her sharply. "I will not have a child's death on my conscience just because she doesn't know the limits of her own body. So until I say you are better you are going to stay in bed or I will do what I have to do to keep you still until you've recovered,am I understood?!"
She coughed again, nodding in agreement.
"Good." The woman stated, slamming her cane onto the floor with a resounding crack. "For now I will have someone help you get back into bed where youwillstay." The woman punctuated her words with another glare, clearly not trusting the younger looking girl to keep her word. "As of this moment, until you have recovered, you are my ward and wewillbe speaking of how you managed to get yourself into this state, make no mistake about that." The elderly woman turned around, hopping onto her cane and pogoing to the door before stopping. "Ah...yes, introductions. I suppose I am getting a bit old, forgetting something like that. My name is Ku Lon and welcome to the Nekohanten, my restaurant."
She watched as the old woman pogoed out of the room from her spot on he floor, only one thought coursing through her mind.
"The Gate justhadto drop me in Nerima of all places...Frost."
-Juban-
"Another day, another boring math lesson."Michiru thought with a quiet groan, not wanting to get one of Ishioka-sensei's famous lectures.
Her and Haruka had finally managed to drag themselves out of bed in time for third period, giving the excuse of "family matters" for her and "sponsor matters" for Haruka, much to the vice principal's unamused look. Something told her that the man hadn't believed their excuses for a minute, given that they arrived at the same time, but whatever.
Of course she could do without Mayu giving her knowing looks and waggling her eyebrows at her.
"Nothing. Happened." She muttered under her breath just loud enough for the girl to hear, praying that her face only felt like it was as red as a rose.
"Uh-huh suuure." The other girl drawled playfully. "And the two of you just happened to come to school late, at the same time, both of you with rumpled uniforms."
" ." The teal haired girl stressed before wincing and looking out one of the classroom windows. "Well okay, something did happen, but nothing like that."
"Whatever could you mean by thatI wonder." The brunette teased, writing down a formula from the board.
"You know exactly what I mean, and it didn't happen." She muttered, sending the class president a small glare. "Anyway it turns out that Haruka and I...maybe used to know each other as kids?"
"...what?"
"Yeah, you see-oh crap, Ishioka-sensei's looking this way!" She whispered, quickly writing down some notes in her notebook.
"You better explain everything at lunch girl!"
"No way in hell am I telling you I fell off a building, or that Haruka and I both ended up in an outfit that looked like it would belong in the old perv's collection!"She thought, shuddering at the memory of the old freak. If Happosai found out what she'd been wearing the night before, then there wasn't a place on Earth she'd be able to hide.
"Wait, wait, wait." The class president groaned later that day on the roof with Haruka and Michiru. "Let me get this straight, you-" She started, pointing at the teal haired girl. "lost your memories of your early childhood because of something your dad did, which you refuse to tell me about, and you-" She continued, shifting her finger to the blonde. "are an idiot who couldn't recognize an old friend because a few years had passed and she dyed her hair?!"
"I wouldn't say I'm an idiot." The blond grumbled under his breath, taking a bite of the bland sandwich he'd bought from one of the vending machines. "Ithasbeen ten years since we last saw each other."
"On top of that-" The brunette continued, ignoring Haruka's words. "-you only found out that you used to know each other because this idiot has aframed picture-" She glared at the blond boy sharply in annoyance. "-on his nightstand of the two of you as kids that you justhappenedto see when you got him in bed because he took you on a fake date while sick. Does that sound about right?"
"That...might be a little accurate." Michiru admitted, a slight flush on her face."Please don't ask about what happened after I found out, please don't ask what happened after I found out."She thought to herself, praying to whatever gods her or her father hadn't managed to piss off that the class president would just leave it there.
"In that case I just have one question." The class president said, continuing to glare at the blond boy. "How in thefuckdid you not recognize her when you had a damnphotographof her?!"
"It's been ten years!" Haruka exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air exasperated. "I know I should have recognized her, but come on! She looks and acts totally different from how she used to, she's even going by a different name!"
"Wait, your name isn't Michiru?!"
The teal haired girl groaned, covering her face with her hands."Damnit Haruka why did you have to say that, of all things why that?"She shook her head, giving the dark haired girl an apologetic look. "Not...exactly?" She admitted with a wince. "I kind of...maybe...got into this school under a fake name?"
Mayu just stared at the teal haired girl for a moment before rubbing her temples slowly in a circle. "The more I hear about this the more your life starts to sound like a manga." She muttered. "Next thing you two are gonna tell me is that you both have magic powers or that you're aliens."
"Like that could happen." Haruka snorted, waving off the brunette's comment while shooting the teal haired girl a subtle look. Why was he...oh, right according to Hino-san and the other girls she'd met, theywerealiens with magical powers.
Come to think of it, if she thought about her life as a whole, it really did sound like the plot of a manga, heck maybe even two or three!
"Anyway-" The class president muttered, taking a bite of one of her rice balls. "-at least you two's fake date went off mostly without a hitch. The whole school's been talking about it so much I've been left mostly alone."
"Mostly?" Michiru asked, quirking her eyebrow.
"Mmm, Uchimura offered to take me out on a date and then called me a dyke when I told him to go to hell." The class president explained, her annoyance at their classmate clear to see as she took another bite of her lunch aggressively.
"I see..." Michiru frowned, taking a small bite of her own sandwich. "On an unrelated note, do you two know where the staff stores the dodgeballs? I think Uchimura needs to get reacquainted with his friend."
Juice spurt out of Haruka's nose as he snorted, his shoulders shaking with mirth. "Keep that up and he's not gonna have any kids." He laughed after wiping his face.
"And the world will thank her for her service." Mayu grinned, sending all three of them into peals of laughter.
If things got to stay like this, just the three of them...maybe staying in Juban wouldn't be so bad.
-?-
"...So she's already left?"
"Seems that way."
"..."
"You know that she'll be fine, "we" will keep her safe."
"...I just don't like this."
"I know...neither do-hm?"
"They're back again."
"Looks like it, we'll just have to leave the little rabbit to "us"."
-Juban Middle School-
"Well, at least mom'll be happy aboutthistest. Still, we probably shouldn't have stayed up so late studying."
"I know, I know." Usagi muttered as she walked down the school hallway to her next class."It was better than just staring at the ceiling because we couldn't sleep."
"Usagi!" Someone called her name from behind, the sound of rapid footsteps rapidly approaching her.
"Oh, it's Naru."Her other self commented, a chilly warmth washing over her."We'd know that voice anywhere!"
"Naru!" They said, smiling at their long time friend. "What's up?"
"Hey girl! I wanted to see if you wanted to go to the Crown and hang out? We haven't really done anything together in like a month!"
"Has it really been that long?"
"Well we have been a little out of it, we've barely slept since Ail and An."She mused to her other half. "Ah, sorry about that Naru-can, Mom kind of grounded me until I get my grades up." That was technically true, their momdidsay they weren't allowed to hang out with any of their friends on school nights, though Ami was allowed over so long as she was tutoring them.
Hell the only reason they could even still go to the Senshi meetings was because they claimed to be at the library studying, not that their mom actually believed that excuse. Funnily enough, they'd been trying to do just that when their communicator had gone off back when Mamoru had been attacked by a possessed senshi.
Trying to at least, they never could stay focused for very long when it came to studying unless they were already exhausted.
"What?! That's torture, how can she do that to a high school girl?!" The redhead exclaimed.
"Because she cares about us and wants us to succeed in life?"
"Shecouldstop kicking us out of the house so we study though."She mused to her other half, nodding along to Naru's comment. "Anyway Naru, did you wanna do anything in particular, or were you just wanting to hang out together?"
"Mom's not going to be happy with us."
"I know, but I feel bad that we haven't hung out with her as much since we became Sailor Moon. We've been friends for years and yet we've basically ignored her and Umino ever since Luna came into our lives."
"True, honestly I'm surprised she hasn't tried to sneak into our bedroom window for a sleep over like she did when we were eight."
"...Why were we grounded that time?"
"Pink hair dye in dad's shampoo."
"Oh yeah!"That had been hilarious, though their dad had pulled off the look surprisingly well if they were being honest.
"Well, I was thinking we could go to the Crown, it's been a while since we were there. I heard they even put in a new Sailor V game!"
-Juban High-
Water dripped from her hair down her back as she emerged and made her way up the small set of stairs leading out of the school's pool."I'm starting to regret trying out for the team."Michiru mused, doing her best to ignore the glares and jealous looks she was receiving from her teammates.
"Not bad I guess." She heard the captain of the swim team grumble. her eye twitching in clear annoyance.
"Riiiight, because a hundred meters in under a minute is "not bad"."She thought with a mental eye roll. "Thank you, I think I could have done it a little faster but I didn't sleep well last night. She said with a smile."Nightmares of dead childhood friends a good night's sleep does not make."
"Oh come on, no-one would believe that crap!" One of the girls glaring at her yelled, stomping around the side of the pool and up to her.
"...What was her name again?"
"Look, just because you're halfway decent at swimming doesn't mean you get to make shit up just to make yourself look better! We're supposed to believe you could do it even faster!?"
The teal haired girl frowned and turned around, looking up at her taller teammate. "Whether you believe it or not doesn't matter to me nor does it make it untrue Icando it faster." Movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention as Haruka and Mayu made to stand up from their spot on the bleachers, silently asking if she needed help.
Shooting them a subtle shake of her head, she turned her attention back to her upperclassmen, shifting her weight onto her right leg as she stared the taller girl in the eye.
"Prove it." The older girl snarled, jabbing the teal haired girl in the chest just above her breasts. "If you really think you're sooo much better than the rest of us then why don't you beat me in a race?!"
"When did I ever say that I thought I was better than you? All I said was that I could beat my own time." She muttered. Discreetly, she glanced around at her other team members, a slight frown forming on her face as she noticed a couple of them smirking at her with barely disguised glee."Ok...maybe there's a bit more to this than a bruised ego."
"You didn't have to, it's written all over your condescending face and we, I mean I've, had enough of it!"
"Aaahhhh so that's what's going on."She mused, raising her eyebrow at the other girl. "Alright...if you're going to insist on this, what are your terms?"
"You and me, 100 meter swim to see who's faster." The taller girl exclaimed. "I win, and you quit the team, we don't need someone like you."
"Really Emi-chan, don't you think that's a little far?" Their team captain shook her head as she looked between the two. "Kaioh-san might be a bit of a braggart, but that's no excuse to kick her off of the team." She said in an almost cloyingly sweet tone.
"And what if I win?" Michiru asked, ignoring the team captain as she pretended to examine her nails."Ishioka-senpai probably set this whole thing up, she was the one who had me do a 100 meter swim when I got to practice."
"You won't." The taller girl, now identified as Emi, growled, looking down at her maliciously. "But I suppose if you beat me I'll take back what I said."
"So let me get this straight." She began, shifting her weight to her other leg. "If I win, you'll "take back" what you said, probably only to keep saying it when I'm not around, but if you win I'll have to leave the team?"
"That's right." Emi stated firmly, grinning down at her like she'd already won.
"Yeah, no." Was the teal haired girl's blunt reply, crossing her arms under her breasts and getting a look of jealous annoyance from the taller girl. "If you want me to play along with this little game of yours then you need to offer something real in return."
She wasn't about to start making deals without getting something in return, not after what Nabiki had done with the negatives of those pictures they'd taken to deal with Happosai.
Emi frowned, her eyes shifting to the captain before sliding back to the teal haired girl. "Well what do you want then?"
"Yup, totally called it."She thought with another mental eye roll. "To be on the team, nothing more, nothing less." She said, staring the taller girl in the eye. "And since I'm already on the team, there's nothing you-" She sent a sharp look to their team captain. -"or anyone else on the team have that I could want."
Turning on her heel, she walked away from her glowering teammates and started walking to the showers, smiling as two sets of foot steps caught up to her along with the snickers of her two friends.
"So tell me the truth,isthere something going on between you and Tenoh-san?" Mayu asked from outside the shower stall as the teal haired girl washed the pool water off of her body. "He's been watching you all day, not in a creepy way though, it almost seems...protective?"
"I...I'm not sure. I definitely feel...things when it comes to him." Michiru admitted, not without a small amount of hesitation as she let the cold water wash over her. "But I'm not sure if...well, if they'remyfeelings."
"What do you mean?"
"Well...you remember how I told you that I don't really remember my early childhood? Apparently, I was pretty different from how I was after I lost my memories."
"Riiight, Tenoh did say something like that at lunch." The brunette muttered. "But what does that have to do with anything?"
"Well...are these feelings mine, or do they belong to the old me? How do I know if I'm actually feeling them?" Ever so lightly her fingers brushed against her lips as she thought of the two times her lips had touched those of the blond's.
Mayu hummed for a moment nodding her head slightly in understanding. "I get what you're saying, but does it matter?"
Eyes flashing in anger she glared at the wall, balling up her hands into fists in her frustration. "Of course it does! How can I eventhinkabout the possibility of a relationship if I don't even know if what I'm feeling is real or not?!"
"Hear me out." Mayu said, trying not to think about the sound of water cascading down her crush's body. "You know you have feelings for blondie, so why don't you explore them, figure out what kind of feelings they are for sure."
"Isn't that a bit...I don't know, exploitive? To use Haruka like that?"
"By all means, tell him." The class president said, leaning against the wall behind her while she waited. "Let him know you're not sure if what you're feeling is romantic or not, but you're willing to find out if he is." Absently, she turned her head to the door leading out of the showers where she knew the blond boy was waiting."Sorry blondie, but I'm not giving up."
"I guess I could do that. If that kiss he gave me was anything to go by I'd say he's more than willing." Michiru mused, reaching for the knob to turn off the water."Well...going off of the two times we've kissed and the cuddle sessions this morning. I still can't believe I did that."
"He did what?!" Mayu screeched, shooting to her feet swinging open the shower door without thinking, startling the teal haired girl who turned around in shock. Her hand, already reaching for the water knob, bumped into it.
She had a moment, an instant really, to feel horror before the cold water turned hot and the familiar feeling of the change washed over her.
Right in front of Mayu.