Author: Abigail aka Moonchild aka Drive Me Mercury
Email: abigail@makenai.org
Rating: PG-13
Chapter started: 3-05-03 Chapter ended: 3-05-21
Disclaimer: Sailor Moon and all characters and settings belong to
the one-and-only Naoko Takeuchi. All created characters and plots within this
story are my own.
Warning: I’ve been
forgetting to put this in previous chapters, but for those of you who are
sensitive, this will be shoujo-ai
(female/female) in future chapters. ^_~
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*Chapter 5*
-Meguriai (Chance Meeting)-
Cold.
Cold and dark.
Miya pulled her sweater
closer around her, pressing her face down into her knees. Here was yet another
thing she was discovering she had overlooked – a place to stay at night. She
feared straying too far from Three Lights apartment in case she should get
lost. In any case she had nowhere else to go. Though it was summer, tonight was
particularly chilly, much to Miya’s discomfort. The hard brick and cement
behind and below her didn’t help, but it was nothing she couldn’t survive.
Thankfully the alley she had taken up residence in for the night was relatively
clean besides several heaps of black-bagged trash, which she tested to find
they made a fairly decent pillow.
She turned her silver key
over in her hand and pondered returning home. But how could she now when there
were so many things she hadn’t even started to learn yet? Setting her mind
firmly, she slipped the key securely back in her jeans pocket.
Finally overcome by her
own body’s limitations, the young girl’s tired head dropped as sleep fell
heavily upon her.
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She watched the young
sleeping figure with gentle eyes – emotion she revealed to very few. But this
particular child had played and teased her way into her garrisoned heart. In
her own way, the unsuspecting girl had come to fill a void in the older woman’s
heart left by loneliness and scarred by the past. Her own timeless eyes had
seen, and had known, and had experienced. She had brought her garnet staff down
in justice and in error. She had gained and she had lost. But a child was
innocence. A child was hope for the future, a new future unmarred by the
mistakes of the past.
For in truth, Miya was her
penance child. Beyond the deep bond there was a sense of responsibility – that
if somehow she raised this child up right it could atone for the sins of her own
past. Perhaps not. Perhaps a happy future was no longer within anyone’s reach.
But at least she could ease some of her own guilt, if just a little. And as
long as she could protect the girl’s safety and happiness, nothing else
mattered.
The child never stirred as
she spread the blanket over her curled-up form, tucking the edges to block out
any draft. With a soft whisper, and a fleeting touch, she stood again,
reluctantly disappearing into the shadows once more.
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The morning sun peered
persistently through the gray fortresses that were Tokyo’s skyscrapers,
splashing its rays throughout the city and anointing everything they touched
with color. Miya awoke with the new daylight glimmering in her eyes, in a
strange environment that was nothing like her red-and-pink plush bedroom. She
blinked at the brick wall opposite her vision for several seconds before
recalling what had brought her here yesterday, and that she was no longer in
the 21st century. Rubbing the tiredness from her eyes and feeling a
little stiff, the pigtailed girl stretched and let the soft blanket fall from
her upper body.
Blanket? Miya blinked at
the innocent-looking weave of fabric that had mysteriously appeared between now
and last night. A swift glance in every direction revealed that she was still
completely alone as far as she could tell. Before she had a chance to puzzle
over it further, her thoughts were interrupted by voices drifting toward her
from the street.
“Last chance to ride with
us,” Taiki said, dangling the keys to the van on a finger. “You do know you’re
likely to get sprung by fangirls if you walk again. Some of the more savvy ones
are starting to learn our routines. The other day Yaten ended up signing
autographs in Bloomington’s for half an hour.”
“Which sucks. Now I can’t
shop there in peace anymore,” the silver-headed boy grumbled.
“No thanks,” Seiya
replied, quite chipper this morning, contrasting last night’s darker mood. “I
enjoy walking, fangirls or no. Tones the thighs,” he explained with a slap to
the side of his blue uniform pants.
“Yeah, sure. Tell me,
what’s with the recent fitness kick?” Yaten deadpanned.
“That one’s not hard to
figure out,” Taiki said dryly. “He knows he can catch a certain ‘rabbit’ on her
way to school if he takes the long route. Which by the way, if he takes the
long route, he WILL be late for class today.” He cast a significant look at his
raven-haired companion.
Seiya only shrugged. “Not
like it would be the first time. You’ll cover for me, ne? Ja!” With a grin, he
flipped his briefcase over his shoulder and headed off in his own direction as
Yaten simply rolled his eyes.
The morning sun was
already beginning to warm the air as Seiya strolled down the sidewalk in no
particular hurry. He checked his watch again to make sure he was timing himself
just right to catch Usagi’s mad dash for the school.
Miya lingered shyly
behind, far enough away but always keeping him in sight and herself out of
sight. She was still not sure why she was following him but she was acting on a
gut feeling. ‘Sometimes the greatest deceiver is inside one’s own
heart.’ Who had said those words? Miya couldn’t
remember. Oh well, she never did care for wise proverbs to begin with. They
never made any sense. Now in a more residential block of the city, she found
the best way to keep hidden was to cut across the front yards, letting fences
and hedges be her temporary shelter. She ignored the occasional odd stare she
received from residents who happening to be walking out the front door as she passed,
and lapsed into full stalking mode once again. She began to forget her purpose
and feel like she was a ninja assassin in one of those old movies, tracking her
unsuspecting prey.
The ninja yawned. She
wasn’t used to getting up this early. Add to that the fact that she wasn’t
feeling all that well rested – the cement ground hadn’t made the most
comfortable of beds last night. Miya grimaced to herself remembering it. The
thought the of mysterious blanket flickered across her mind, before she
disciplined herself once again to focused on the blue-uniformed figure on the
sidewalk.
Suddenly a flash of blue
and yellow crossed her vision, accompanied by the flap of running feet against the
cement and loud panting. The blur came out of nowhere and whizzed past Seiya
until it was stopped by a single spoken word.
“Odango!”
The ‘blur’, actually a
teenage girl in a white and navy school uniform and with long sunshine blonde
pigtails, halted in her tracks and looked back as if noticing for the first
time that there was another person on the sidewalk. Her big blue eyes blinked
in surprise as a piece of toast dangled from her half-open mouth. “Seiya? What
are you doing here?”
The boy laughed. “Walking
to school the same as you. You know, Odango, you run the risk of getting
heartburn if you make a habit of eating on the run like that.”
Miya had to press her fist
to her mouth to keep from bursting out in giggles when she realized that the
‘odango’ was a nickname. It fit so perfectly! The girl’s knee-length hair was
pulled up into two long tails, with a bun on top of each. The buns really did
resemble odangos, almost good enough to eat. In fact, this girl’s head almost
identically resembled the Queen Serenity’s silver hairstyle. In all her days,
Miya had never seen anyone with hair quite like the Queen’s. It must be some
odd 20th century fashion, she concluded. She always suspected the
Queen was horribly out of style, and now she had proof! That really was
laughable. She wondered if anyone had ever dared to call the monarch of Crystal
Tokyo ‘Odango’.
“Heart-what?” ‘Odango’
blinked.
“Never mind.”
“Gyaahh~~!!” the blonde
suddenly shrieked like an off-key alarm as she stared at her watch. “I’m going
to be so late! I gotta go!
Sayonaraaa~~!!” With that she spun and sprinted away again, hair streaking
behind her, leaving behind the faintest wisp of vanilla perfume. Seiya remained
rooted to the sidewalk as she rounded a sharp corner and disappeared. She
couldn’t be sure, but Miya thought she saw his shoulders rise and fall in a
small sigh.
In trying to get a better
view of Seiya and the blonde’s short exchange, the black-haired girl had
unconsciously leaned dangerously out over the hedge she was supposed to be
hiding behind. Stretched on tiptoes, she peered out toward the sidewalk,
ignoring the branches that scraped her arms, until…
SNAP!
A dead branch gave way
under her weight with a loud pop, breaking Miya’s focus and throwing her
off-balance. Seiya’s head snapped around. Miya dove for cover. Safe behind the
hedge again, she inhaled a deep breath. That was too close. Had he seen her?
Seiya’s suspicions hit the
ceiling once again when he caught sight of the dark pigtailed head disappearing
behind the bush. His intuition wasn’t playing tricks on him after all – he -was- being followed. Ever since he left the apartment he
hadn’t been able to shake the uncomfortable feeling and the faint voice of
invisible footsteps. Sapphire eyes narrowed.
She crawled on hands and
knees through the dirt until she reached the end of the hedge. Perhaps he
hadn’t seen her after all and she’d gotten lucky. She peeked through the outer
branches looking for a pair of feet, but didn’t find any. Strange… but maybe
he’d started walking again. She stuck her body out farther, and then farther,
until she had a full view of the length of the sidewalk, and there was no blue
uniform in sight in either direction. Puzzled, Miya stepped out into the center
of the sidewalk in plain view.
She shrieked when
something grabbed her, lifting her completely off her feet. Instinct kicked in
and she struggled violently, wildly swinging white tennis-shoed feet. The
strong arms held determinedly tight around her waist. She opened her mouth and
screamed in the highest pitch she could manage.
“Don’t scream!” an anxious
voice barked close to her ear. Miya stopped and froze at the sound of the
words. And the realization that her captor was none other than Seiya Kou. Then
it struck her: She’d been caught.
Panicked, she squirmed and kicked twice as hard, one foot managing to connect
hard with a shin. She screamed again, and this time a hand came up to clamp
over her mouth, cutting off the sound of her voice. Automatically, Miya bit
down. Hard.
He gave a cry of pain and
loosened his hold enough for Miya to drop to the ground. “Dammit, kid, quit
screaming like that! People are going to think I’m some pervert child molester!
I’m not going to hurt you, alright?” Seiya nervously looked up and down the
street to see if anyone really was watching. His arm reached out and snagged
the hood of her sweater a she started to make her clean getaway, and jerked her
back. “But you’re not going anywhere,” his voice was suddenly low and fierce,
“until you tell why you’re following me.”
She felt her heart beating
strangely against her chest. Why she was following him? She wasn’t even sure herself. With no way to run,
Miya turned to face him.
Wide sapphire eyes locked with identical narrower ones at the same level. Seiya had to prevent himself from taking an audible intake of breath. It was the same girl from the audience yesterday, but somehow that wasn’t really a shock. Naturally he felt a twinge of guilt for being so harsh with her – she was nothing but an innocent-looking little kid. One thought of her teeth in his hand, however, and that feeling diminished. But… there was something else about her, below the surface, and a feeling that told him she was more than just a neighborhood kid out playing a make-believe game of ‘spy’. Oddly, it didn’t feel like a threat, but almost like a strange case of déjà vu. She had a light in her aura almost like a certain other girl that danced in his dreams every night. ‘But that’s strange, because… I swear she almost looks like me.’
Miya met Seiya’s eyes and
in a second all hostility fled from them as the blue orbs widened. She could
feel that unexplainable feeling rising in her chest again, just like it had
been at the concert yesterday.
“Who are you?” Seiya’s
words were low, uncertain.
Miya stood silent as a
statue. A thousand words were streaming though her mind. ‘Ask him,’ her thoughts said, ‘ask him… does he have a
daughter? Does he know anything about his future? Who is the person he calls
out to in his songs? Am I familiar to you at all?’ But her lips would not move.
“Where did you come from?”
He was certain she had been the source of yesterday’s mysterious message, and
that’s what made things more puzzling. The message, however faint, was put out
on the same wavelength as theirs, and Seiya had never felt that done by a
person not of Kinmokuseijin blood.
‘I come from the
future… I’m looking for someone…’ Again her
thoughts could not seem to cooperate with her lips. Miya took a step backwards.
His eyes studied her with a mixture of intensity and confusion, and she
suddenly felt, however unlikely it was, that he knew everything and was reading
her mind. Could he see the empty spot in her soul? Her heart was beating again
and she didn’t know why.
But then a thought struck
her. What if she’d made a mistake? What if her gut feeling was wrong and Seiya
had nothing to do with her past? Even worse, what if she had changed the course
of Time by coming here? She might never be born! The confusion of the situation
weighed down on the nine-year-old child.
And Seiya’s eyes still
watched her, waiting for an answer. An answer she didn’t have. Her heart
pounded in her ears.
“Hey!!” Seiya reached and missed as the mystery child
suddenly turned and fled. He sat back on his heels and sighed, watching her
disappear. As he wondered… would he ever see her again?
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She pressed her back
against the inner wall of a brick fence, chest rising and falling with her
heavy breath. “Baka Miya,” she spoke softly to herself. “Why did you run away?”
It was too late now. Her one chance, and she’d blown it. If only she knew who he truly was. What was she to do now?
Suddenly sensing a
presence beside her, she looked up, and blue eyes lit with surprise.
The olive-skinned Guardian
of Time merely extended a hand toward the young girl. “Come,” she said. “This
is no way for you to learn about the past.”
It was minutes later that
they were seated once again in Setsuna’s small office, back in the 21st
century. Miya squirmed in her seat, looking down at her folded hands in her
lap, feet swinging back and forth. She knew she was in for a scolding. No, that
was an understatement. In light of what she had done – running away to the past
without telling anyone – the words “grounded for life” were looming in her
head. Well, there was nothing she could do now but take what was coming. She
only wished she could have found some kind of concrete answer.
Setsuna laid her suit
jacket over the back of her chair and sat down facing the girl. The older woman
sighed. ‘Here it comes,’ Miya thought.
“Now,” Setsuna began.
“It’s time someone told you… about your parents.”