Tension of the Past

Part 3

Note: Okay, so I realize now, that a majority of my matches are same sex (or multi-sex… if there is such a thing)… so of course there will be intimacy! I would be surprised if you’re reading this and NOT open to homosexuality. So. If ya don’t like two girls kissing and holding hands… then obviously this fic ain’t for you.

BUT! If you wanna keep on reading, please do so! When writing this, I felt such a warm feeling in my heart… and somehow I know how Naoko-sama must have felt when doing scenes like this. Try it sometime… it really is incredible. ~.^

Note2: A “flick” is a soccer move. The full definition is “the ability of a player to use his foot to 'flick' the ball into space so that he may run onto the ball”… yes, I had to surf the web to find the term. Don’t laugh!

All right! Onto the story!

*~*~*~*

Queen Kakyuu stared out the window, watching as her eternal friends faded away, no longer the size of even the stars. One small tear slipped down her face, and as she inhaled, a small sound escaped her mouth. Flittingly, she raised a hand to her face, touching her lips, and delicately wiping her tear away.

“They’ll never come back,” she said, finally to the figure behind her, who sat on the bed, robed in near transparent silk.

The slender black haired woman walked to her lover and wrapped her arms around Kakyuu’s waist, burying her face in her shoulders. God, she smelled sweet.

“Don’t say that,” Seiya murmured, her words muffled by Kakyuu’s skin.

The queen burst out laughing. “It tickles!” she cried, which only made it worse when Seiya, her lips still on her neck, said, “Well, then… that means I’ll have to continue, huh?”

Kakyuu pulled away, clutching her neck protectively, eyes laughing, and twirled around to face Seiya. Like a magnet, they came closer and twined fingers, eyes shining with sweet passion, and an image passed through Seiya’s mind of Haruka and Michiru. Who would have ever thought she would miss them?

“But it’s true. They’ve been purposefully lowering their rank to leave…” Kakyuu murmured, coming back to her thoughts. “But they’ll be surprised when they get there… Taiki had been hiding it from everyone, even herself… the calculations of the stars prove it. 900 years have passed on Earth since we were there.”

Seiya’s breath caught, and her eyes widened. “But… Taiki said it had only been nine…”

“It feels like that, doesn’t it?” said Kakyuu. “What is a year, though? A rotation of a planet around its sun. We thrive on a self-sustaining planet, with no such star. We live in perpetual timelessness… Either Taiki misread her calculations… or she lied…”

A world with eternal night and a land as bright as day. Incredible, Taiki what you made for us… but you created our planet this way to fuel your own illusions, didn’t you? You didn’t want to believe your friends had died… didn’t want to feel the same rotation of our companions.

“Even so,” Seiya answered. “I don’t believe our friends on Earth are gone forever. Yaten would have said something… would have told us if she felt them fade away.”

“Unless she was in denial, too?”

“Let’s trust them enough to live.” Seiya looked into her beautiful eyes. “Sailor Moon has a way of surviving anything.”

“Sailor Moon…” Kakyuu lowered her head.

You claimed my Seiya’s heart at one time, beautiful soldier. I have yet to know if you have it still. She seems to love me… but when she looks at me, does she see your face?

Sensing her thoughts, Seiya hooked a finger under the queen’s chin, and brought their faces together.

“There is only you,” she whispered before their lips touched.

As the kiss played on, Kakyuu’s face heated, and turned several shades of royal red. That woman always had that power over her. She couldn’t explain it. She felt so young and care-free… so innocent around Seiya…

The kiss broke apart, and Kakyuu said, “I’ve been thinking about this for a while… maybe it’s time to pay a visit to Earth. We’ve been needing a sister planet lately…”

“You always get to the point, don’t you?” laughed Seiya. Kakyuu’s smile faded after a small silence.

“No… but it’s been on my mind lately…”

“You deserve a break. Look what you have chosen to rule.” Seiya turned Kakyuu to the window to look over the magnificent planet. “And yet, even you do not rule. The people govern themselves, they live off of life and energy. When I lived on Earth, it felt so… primitive. Gruesome. People living under false love, blinding their eyes to the truth. I blinded myself there, now that I think about it. How could I have ever chosen to stay on a planet like Earth, where people didn’t even know themselves, if my love wasn’t there?”

Which was why Taiki left, thought Kakyuu, though she didn’t voice it.

“There were many bright stars on that planet,” continued Seiya. “Others beside the Sailor Soldiers, who knew the truth, or were finding it. But why have only enough shining stars to fill a small land, when you could have a whole planet?”

“I’m so glad you love New Kinmoku.” Kakyuu embraced Seiya, closing her arms, loving the feel of flesh against flesh. She was so happy to know that this would never end. They were in a part of the universe that was pure. Not far away from the Solar System of Sailor Moon… but not very close either.

“You’re afraid…” whispered Seiya. Kakyuu realized she was trembling, and opened her eyes, tears filling her vision.

“I remember another world,” she murmured. “One full of love like this. One full of people just as awake as these people. And I remember the death, and destruction and pain of that world. How our lives were separated from what we had known before.”

“Well, then,” said Seiya, quiet for a moment. “I have to tell you I don’t like to leave either. Yaten and Taiki were nervous as well… but I think I have a solution.”

“Oh?”

“We’ll take it with us.”

*~*~*~*

“What are you doing here?” sneered the Taiki clone, facing his adversary. This young boy that brought such a quickening to his heart. Ichigo didn’t answer, just stared at him, eyes narrowing slightly. He had to admit, the boy did have a strong will, and knew how to use it.

Eyes locked onto each other, they moved around the room, Ichigo to the refridgerator, and Taiki to the Water Table crackers lying by the counter. Fridge door open… Soda pop can out. Foot under box. Soccer flick. Crackers in hand.

With cold calcuation they stared at each other, then sat on each end of the counter. Taiki opened a jar of the caviar and spread it on the crackers, while Ichigo rolled the can on the counter, angrily.

“You’re not supposed to be out,” the boy said, finally.

“Yes, well… it’s quite difficult to live in such a cramped area. The claustrophobia was getting out of hand.” Ichigo snorted. “And anyway, why aren’t you supposed to be… somewhere else?”

Ichigo shrugged.

“Did the princess have another one of her tantrums?” Ichigo’s eyes widened questioningly. “I heard her screaming down the halls.”

“Yeah… Aunt Serenity’s making the rounds.” An eyebrow lifted on the older man’s face. Ichigo scowled and said heatedly, “Don’t even think about it. She knows everything, so don’t do anything stupid. Uncle Endymion too. They’re letting you slide because I’m with you.”

“Really now?”

Ichigo-kun…what did we talk about before? About exploiting power? You know the queen isn’t aware of everything that goes on.

I know, Luna, I know… sorry, but I can’t see why we just get rid of this guy…

He’s your father…!

HE IS NOT MY FATHER. My father is DEAD. This man is a twisted freak who’s so narcissistic, he thinks he’s God’s gift to the universe.

“The disdain on your face makes you quite ugly.”

Ichigo shot out of his seat, bringing the pop can up in the air, and slammed it down on the table with a loud crack. Nothing happened, except for Taiki’s eyes to widen ever so slightly, and Ichigo’s breathing to quicken and his face to flush.

“You’re killing my mother!”

Ichigo! Calm down! The shout in his mind made him wince slightly, but did not abate his anger.

Taiki only blinked. “Me?” he said, clearly shocked. But this guy was a great actor. He could never be trusted.

“She’s in love with you! Can’t you see that?! And all you do is kill her every second she’s with you.”

I’m sending Hotaru.

“Wrong,” answered Taiki. “She’s not in love with me. She’s in love with the man that left her 900 years ago. A man who didn’t care for her at all. I’m just an image of him. She created me to bring him back, which is impossible. She needs to realize that I couldn’t care less about her… and neither does the ‘original’.”

Ichigo shouted out in rage. A burst of fire, of confusion and hurt. He hated this… this gnat that buzzed in his ear every moment… this feeling of total helplessness. Ichigo was strong, young (if 904 was young), handsome, intelligent… but he was also scared and confused. As old as he was, he still acted the twelve year child he looked.

There was a darkness in the man’s face. A darkness of loathing and hatred, and a simmering rage that could easily be brought to a roaring boil in a moment.

“You have no soul,” hissed Ichigo. Taiki stared straight at him in him, and through him.

How right you are, my boy. I can see that soul in my mind. The soul I should have had. That kindness… but I don’t have it. It belongs to another. I am just a puppet, made from desperation. Have you ever stayed up nights thinking about that? How you wouldn’t be alive today, if it wasn’t for your creator’s snap of sanity? She is my mother… and wants to be my lover… I can’t love her. I don’t know how.

Ichigo took his soda can and started to shake it furiously, not breaking his eye contact. After a few seconds, he raised the soda can to near eye level, peering over the rim at his supposed father, and tipped the can toward the man, thinking about popping the lid when—

“ICHIGO-KUN!” Hotaru screamed from the doorway.

Startled, Ichigo’s fingers DID, in fact, pop the can, the condensed sugar water spraying all over the Taiki clone and his quality caviar.

“Umm…” Ichigo blinked at the sticky, soaked, shocked man, and then looked over to Hotaru, who just stared, eyes wide and horrified. Ichigo laughed nervously, grabbed Hotaru by the shoulders, and ran out of the kitchen.

“YOU LITTLE BRAT! I WILL KILL YOU!”

The man ran after the two children, Ichigo hooting and laughing, tears streaming down his face as his sides started to cramp. Hotaru was trying her best not to giggle, and her face was contorting to look as if she had just eaten an entire lemon, her jaw muscles seared in pain as the sounds of monkeys escaping their captivity left her mouth.

And Taiki01? Well, the oddest thing was happening… because he was smiling… and his heart seemed to slightly float... and a chuckle left his mouth at the thought of this ridiculous situation. Both Hotaru and Ichigo knew that there was no menace to him now.

It felt so good, this strange sensation! Was this how it felt to be giddy? To feel something other than fury and anger?

But it all stopped when Ichigo ran straight into a foreign, solid, yet pliable body. Bouncing back into the clone of father, ricocheting off of HIM, his eyes closed from laughing so hard, and landed on the floor. Clutching his stomach, he dropped his head, and managed out a shaky, “Sorry” before the image of Taiki’s face, dripping in cherry soda entered his head, and the laughter started all over again.

But his laughter abruptly stopped when he realized the silence in the room… and confused, he opened his eyes to stare straight at Taiki.

A Taiki with hair swept back from his face, and different clothes, and a calmer aura… and… and… not…

The connection between the man and the boy abruptly ended when a small, barely audible gasp ended the silence. Everyone turned to see Ami, Princess Mercury, at the far end of the room, a long blue flowing gown covering her thin form, her hands covering her mouth.

“Ami…” The original Taiki’s voice echoed throughout the room… and he started towards her, first slowly, then nearly running when he saw the shakiness of her steps.

He got there just before she lost consciousness.

And as her friends and family ran to her, Taiki stayed behind. The boy looked up at the clone, trying to penetrate the mask Taiki01 wore, but unable to. And Taiki01 just stared at the flock of people… knowing he was left out, would always be left out.

The small flare of hope inside him quickly died, reduced to a pile of ash cooling on the stone of his heart. They would all forget them now. Well, let him. Only the thoughts of freedom filled him mind now. That was what fueled him. Freedom from this wretched palace, and these people… and this aching heart that longed to know the meaning of love.