Gundam Wing Fan Fiction / Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Mended Wing ❯ Mended Wing - Chapter Two ( Chapter 2 )
Mended Wing - Chapter Two
Trowa looked about the small room and the numerous inhabitants thereof. He stood at the wall farthest from the door in a simple gesture to conserve space. This shrine bedroom was obviously never meant to hold fifteen people. Around the small wooden table knelt Usagi's four closest friends, as they were introduced: Mizuno Ami (whom he remembered), Hino Rei, Kino Makoto, and Aino Minako. Trowa winced inwardly as the blonde eyed him wistfully. He had to admit that she was quite attractive, for a girl. But the glaring daggers Quatre sent her could not be ignored, whereas she could.
Outside them stood three more women, two older, one younger than the other . . . Senshi? The tallest, a blonde whom he had first thought a man, glared at the five with unhidden suspicion and contempt. Trowa hoped he would never have to fight this woman, for she seemed as if she would be a fierce competitor. He smiled a bit, knowing that all of that energy went towards the protection of Usagi, even if the woman would never say it aloud. He recognized his own protectiveness in her. She had been introduced as Tenoh Haruka.
Beside this glaring form stood a smaller, more elegantly shaped female, who looked as though she would like to welcome them with open arms, but held herself back for the sake of her taller companion. Introduced as Keioh Michiru, Trowa recognized in her the slight leaning towards her lover that Quatre evinced when unsure of himself. Next to this woman, but standing a bit off from the others- or as much as she could in this crowd- a small and rather sickly seeming girl trained violet eyes on Duo, who fidgeted under the glare. The acrobat shuddered; he would no more like being under those eyes than he would like his head being crushed by a lion's teeth. Something about that girl unnerved him, made him want to run away despite all of his experience in war and death. Tomoe Hotaru in all of her childish innocence, caused a great well of dread in his stoic heart.
Setsuna faced them, as did Mamoru. But Usagi stood with them, bouncing excitedly and ten times more beautiful than the last time they'd seen her. Even Trowa had carried a bit of a crush on her, but he doubted if there was one of them who hadn't. Quatre blushed when she ran into the room and immediately flung her arms about him.
And Duo . . . poor Duo. He gazed on her with an open expression of wistful love, sorrow tingeing the edges in the knowledge that he couldn't have her. He had tried not to hug her in return when she came to him, but Trowa saw the crumbling of that resolve as his arms closed around her slender waist. Mamoru flushed in silent rage.
"Setsuna-san!" Usagi whirled on her older, probably oldest, friend and screeched in indignation, "Why didn't you tell me you were bringing them here?!?"
"Because I didn't, Usagi-chan, or at least not yet." She smiled when she saw not only Usagi's blank look, but the confusion all around. "I don't know the pilots, because I live in this time. The Setsuna who took you into the future would have been a Setsuna from the future, and she must have been the one who sent them here."
"Oh." Usagi paused, contemplating this, rolling it over in her mind. Trowa could tell because all of this roiling thought showed clearly on her face. Before he realized, a deep chuckle rose from his throat, partially from seeing that adorable expression on her face, and partially from relief at just seeing her again. His laughter danced across the space between him and Quatre, who picked it up and amplified it and passed it on to Duo. From there Hiiro and Wufei caught the chuckle-disease and in seconds all five pilots where being stared at by nine confused Senshi and one Prince of Earth who couldn't seem to decide whether to be angry or muddled. None of them cared.
~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~
Minako glanced between the odango atama who was her best friend and the laughing, VERY handsome braided man who obviously felt much more towards Usagi than simple friendship. Mamoru couldn't be too overjoyed over his wife having such a . . . friend.
Maybe, if Minako were lucky, SHE could find such a friend in one of the five.
The tall one, Trowa, would have been her first choice. Exotic, his height and coloring alone made him an attractive example of the male species. Being a circus performer meant, also, that his long frame would be mighty limber. A distinct advantage. But, if she remembered correctly, someone else already staked a claim to him; the small blonde, if memory served. Trowa was about as accessible as Haruka-san.
Minako sighed and moved on. Not the braided Duo. His affections lay elsewhere. Hiiro, she recalled, gave his heart over in mad love to a princess from his own time, Relena. Usagi spoke often of her descendent, very proud of the girl and her accomplishments.
Well then, that left Wufei, didn't it?
Even had she not been told- several times over, at her own insistence- about each of the pilots at length, Minako still would have known that the Chinese man carried a great deal of pride. It nearly flowed from him as he stood there, arms crossed, nose held slightly in the air. He obviously felt himself slighted at having to share space with them, and she could guess the reasons why. Each of them, save Mamoru, had two reasons bouncing merrily from their chests. Certainly, Minako was very proud of her own, and she adjusted them just before he turned his dark eyes to her. She gestured him over and those eyes blinked, surprise shining deep in their liquid blackness. Among the throng of people asking Usagi and the other pilots questions, his movement towards her went unnoticed.
"*What do you want, onna?*" he asked her in nearly perfect Japanese.
"I just wanted to welcome you to Tokyo, and to the year 2001." She grinned as he blinked once more in surprised at her English, only slightly marred by an accent. "I spent a few years in England." She stuck out her hand for him to grasp, lifting one brow as she looked on him, daring him to accept. At first Wufei seemed as if he may actually turn her down. Then he scowled and gripped her slender hand in his own, closing his fingers tightly. It felt like he tried to crush her hand with his strength. Minako stared him in the eyes, refusing to flinch, even as the bones covered by her flesh ground together. Moments passed, and at last the golden-skinned man released her.
"You're stubborn, onna, but stubborn doesn't mean you're strong."
"Oh, you're just as arrogant as Usagi-chan said!" Minako clapped her hands together and felt a great surge of wicked pride as he threw a glower in Usagi's general direction. "I'm going to make a project out of you!"
"P-Project?" He recoiled, and Minako grinned to see the flicker of fear behind his dark eyes.
"Oh don't worry, it won't be painful!" She paused and placed a finger at her chin as if in deep thought, "Well, not too much anyway."
"Baka onna!"
Minako watched him back away and sighed. What was it about her that always seemed to scare the men away?
~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~
"Let's go shopping!" Usagi stated, one arm raised in unabashed enthusiasm. Duo looked at her skeptically. Shopping certainly didn't seem like the proper activity to be engaging in at the moment, what with Setsuna's vision and the five pilots suddenly thrust into the past with no explanation. However, Usagi shaped the tides in her own will, just like the bright orb that once was her home.
"Usako, I don't think-"
"Mamo-chan, who knows how long they'll be here, and they didn't have time to pack!"
"Erg . . ." Duo swore he saw a large sweatdrop fall across the dark man's face. "But Usako-"
"Mamo-chan! They only have one pair of clothing each! What are they going to do, wear your clothes??"
The blonde odango had a point. Duo looked at himself, his four friends, and then at Mamoru. The five all possessed the tall, wiry frames of teenagers, even though they claimed the ages of twenty-three and twenty-four. Perhaps something about Gundanium stunted maturity. No one could say, however, that they weren't strong.
Though they were grown, Mamoru still stood above them all save for Trowa, whom he shared a height with. While their muscle hid within the deceptive slenderness of their forms, the dark man's strength was laid out for all to see. His muscles did not bulge, but he definitely filled out his shirt more than the pilots did theirs. All in all, the borrowing of clothing would not be an option. Duo grinned, looking forward to the little trip in which Usagi would spend all of her husband's money.
"Alright," Mamoru finally said, handing over a credit card, "but I expect you to pay attention tonight when I tell you want happened at the meeting."
"Hai, hai!" she bounded up to him, threw her tiny arms around his neck, and kissed him passionately before them all. Even Mamoru seemed shocked by this display, for when she released her hold, he didn't move or even blink, merely stared stupidly into space. "We'll meet you at four o' clock near Juuban." Usagi grabbed Duo with one hand and Quatre with the other, dragging them outside. The other three followed.
"I've got to keep him on his toes," Usagi answered his unspoken question with a wink.
She led them all over Tokyo, through the shops and the Juuban area where she'd grown up. She even took them to meet her parents. Mrs. Tsukino (Tsukino-san, he reminded himself) immediately cheered and rushed them all into the kitchen for lemon pie and cakes. Mr. Tsukino grilled them about their ages, occupations, and girlfriends. He approved endlessly of Trowa and Quatre, seeing them as no threat to his daughter's virtue. Duo wondered if the man realized Usagi was married. Hiiro admitted finally to being in a relationship with Relena when asked. Duo, however, and Wufei created quite a problem, being single. The braided on felt the urge to scream at the man that Usagi was married, and there was nothing any of them could do about it, as much as he might like to. However, Usagi saw the incident about to happen and quickly made up an excuse for them to leave.
"Your father is . . ."
"Odd, I know," she completed his sentence even as she threaded her slender arm through his and lead them on to more shopping adventures.
They met an old friend of Usagi's named Umino Naru, complete with geeky husband in tow. Duo had to admit the woman was cute, but she was no Usagi. He flirted anyway, just to see the shade of red her husband's face would turn. Surprisingly Naru turned out to be very devoted to him, and rebuffed the braided one gently. Duo smiled as the two walked away, glad to know that more than one loving wife existed in the past. His gaze drifted to Usagi then, and his smile wavered.
Tokyo, as she lead them through its streets and alleys, reminded him of the old simple days when he knew nothing of how his future would be, for these people were really just like his juvenile self. Young, going about their lives, not knowing of the wonderful advances to come nor the wars as a result of that new technology. As Usagi cavorted before him, his comrades joining in her happy antics- even Wufei- Duo saw all around him a stream of lonely orphans who knew not what waited for their descendents in the future, or how much they should cherish their connections with other people. How different could his time be if the people here, in this place in the Timestream, had only stopped pushing each other around and instead pulled each other along?
"What are you thinking about?" Usagi looked up at him with fathomless sapphire eyes that seemed almost as if she already knew.
"Just the future."
"Don't worry about the future," she assured him in usual exuberant style, flinging an arm out to gesture at her fellow human beings, "No matter what happens now, the Senshi and I have things covered!"
"I guess." He offered up a bright, Duo-ish smile to persuade her of his genuine appeasement and tossed his braid over his shoulder with the hand not occupied by her arms. Usagi smiled at him and rose on the tip of her toes, planting a short, chaste kiss on his cheek. Quatre called out to her from in front of a shop window and she flashed him a bright grin before releasing his arm and skipping off to answer the boy's question.
Duo's cheek tingled where her lips touched.
Usagi . . . you really don't know what you do to me, do you? You really don't.
~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~
Usagi-san . . . you really don't know how much I hate this, do you?
Wufei growled to himself as their little group of six wandered aimlessly all over the city of Tokyo and accomplished absolutely nothing. Well, he had two new shirts and three pairs of pants. Those would come in handy in a Time where he had no worldly possessions and no identity because he didn't exist yet.
He hated time travel.
The entire thing had been easier when he was not the one leaping over years and finding himself plunked into a different place and time altogether. All he had to do was watch her, learn her odd dialect, and rejoice when she left and his life returned to some semblance of normal. Okay, so he'd thought about her often between now and then, but a brief relationship with Sally Po had cured him of that. However, since he could never understand her or her penchant towards hopeless battles, that lasted only a year. Sometimes he paused a moment and wondered what might have been. Then reality usually found a way to sink in and remind him that there could be no turning back. Well, not for him anyway.
Or so he'd thought. But now the clock HAD turned back, but way too far. Way, way too far. The story of his life, really. Chang Wufei never could do anything except in extremes.
"Wufei-kun!"
Sigh. When Usagi called, one generally listened. Not out of fear, however. He went to her because she exuded cheerfulness, and he wanted to go.
"What is it?"
"Look, don't you just love that shirt?"
He looked through the window at the garment she indicated, seeing a garish thing of yellow and orange, emblazoned with a large black dragon across the front. The dragon he liked, yes, but the colors . . . Wufei lifted a brow and gave his female friend a questioning look specifically crafted to make her rethink her choice in clothing for him. He forgot, however, that he threw this expression at Tsukino Usagi, who perfected the art of ignoring such things and getting her own way despite the resistance of others. Instead of dropping the subject of the horrid shirt, she grabbed his hand and dragged him into the store, rummaging through racks in order to find the garment in a size four times what he normally would wear.
"Go on," she said, shoving him into a dressing booth, "try it on! See how it looks before you completely discard it!"
Wufei grumbled as he locked the door, wondering just what he'd done in his life to deserve such treatment. Surely nothing he could possibly do would warrant the forcing of really bad clothing onto his person? He could simply not be that evil. Growling obscene words under his breath, the Chinese man jerked off his own blue tank top- how long had he owned that one anyway?- and slipped the large, button down yellow and orange monstrosity over his head. A glance in the mirror confirmed that while orange and yellow did not necessarily clash with his complexion, he simply could not stand the thing. Usagi really did need to work on her sense of style, at least for men's clothing.
"Come out and show me what it looks like!" Her music voice floated through the white panels of wood between him and the outside world. A strange world with no concept of mobile suits, the resources available in space, or of the simple beauty of a white silk shirt. "Come on, Wufei-kun!"
With a sigh he unlocked the door and stepped out to the expectant faces of Usagi and his friends. The blonde girl . . . woman, he corrected himself . . . clapped and bounced on her toes upon seeing him. The other four pilots stood behind her, either smirking in amusement, or looking at anywhere but him so they wouldn't have to smirk. Even Hiiro had a hard time hiding his amusement, and Wufei swore that the former Wing pilot would have hell to pay if that smile ever did appear.
"Wufei-kun, it looks great!"
"Yeah Wufei," Duo leaned on her shoulder, one arm dangling at his side, indigo eyes looking over the Chinese man's form, "it looks just absolutely great. Hey, why don't you walk over there and see if you can set the men's clothes on fire?"
While Wufei agreed that most of those items did need to be burned, he saw no humor in Duo's statement. He stepped forward fully intending to pummel that grin from the braided baka's face, when Usagi put both her arms up between them.
"No fighting. My rule. In this time, when there are no youma and no one trying to take over or destroy everything, we don't fight."
Wufei didn't think that it worked exactly like that, however, he knew better than to try and contradict her. At least about that. So she made them shake hands and promise to "play nice." The image of two unruly children in a playground only made him scowl more.
Usagi bought the shirt for him and forced him to wear it out of the store. He felt the eyes of everyone one him for wearing such a horrible faux pas, of that he was certain. Nevermind that half of the young men around here wore clothing of a similar style. None of them had any sense whatsoever and with Usagi's purchase he had officially become one of them.
"It's not so bad, really Wufei-kun," Usagi said as she came up behind him. She smiled, and suddenly he didn't seem to care anymore. What kind of person could do that? Did it take being a princess of a long forgotten kingdom? Or was she just . . . like that? Wufei sighed and gave in, smiling as well. He even put out his arms in offer of a hug, which she readily accepted. Memories of that dance they'd shared came to his mind, and those memories were not bad at all as he held her small frame in his arms. But he felt nothing special, other than a deep respect and friendship. Good, his crush had passed. However, the look on Duo's face was priceless, and it would be a laugh to make him think-
Usagi gave a short cry that died as quickly as it was birthed. Her form went limp in his embrace just as suddenly. Wufei stood there a moment, feeling something terribly, horrible wrong, but not knowing what it was or what to do. He knew one thing: he didn't want to look at her. He didn't want to see, he didn't . . . but he couldn't stand there holding her and some instinctual part of him knew as he braced her loose form that only a millisecond had passed since she first gave her cry.
Behind him he heard the deep, anguished sound of Mamoru's voice and again wished he didn't have to let her go and see . . .
But he leaned forward and cradled her body in his arms, laying her gently on the concrete, people all around them passing by without a care even as Wufei saw the small, perfect circle of a bullet hole in the center of Usagi's forehead. The edges burned red and a small trickle of blood oozed from the ugly wound in testament to the horrid act just performed. He felt wind from behind him as nine people rushed over to see the fate of their princess. The woman Rei gave a strangled sound. From ahead Duo lurched forward, pure terror in his indigo orbs. Quatre keeled over with his hands to his forehead, Trowa obviously torn between aiding his koi and seeing what he could do for the woman who once saved his life. Hiiro stood absolutely still, Prussian eyes darting about . . . in search of . . . the . . . person who . . .
Usagi's body shuddered, and a wave of pure energy shot forth. Wufei heard Setsuna screaming bfore it hit him and then he . . . knew . . . no . . . more.
End Chapter Two.