Gundam Wing Fan Fiction / Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Mended Wing ❯ Mended Wing - Chapter Five ( Chapter 5 )

Authors Notes: I am so seriously NOT motivated for Mended Wing. I don't know what it is, but I can't seem to WANT to write more of this. So this chapter might be very short by my usual standards, but hey… at least I wrote it, ne? I think I need some really, really, REALLY good reviews. Bear with me, folks, as I go searching for my long lost motivation. And thankies to everyone who knows they deserve thankies.

Disclaimer: Not mine. That's all I feel like saying.

Mended Wing - Chapter Five

Quatre felt the urge to poke at the little sobbing cat again. He'd managed one good poke after the cats had first spoken and before Minako had broken the news. He still couldn't quite believe in talking cats, but he thought that a poke probably wasn't appropriate at that moment. The black one was totally inconsolable, lying limp in Rei's arms as Minako petted the other. The white cat, Artemis as the girls had called him, dabbed at his eyes with a paw but refused to sob. He glared instead at Quatre, for he had been the victim of the blonde's shocked curiosity, and being angry at that surely was easier than dealing with the death of what must have been a very close and good friend.

Well, lucky them, for having a close and good friend. They should have a parade in their honor.

"Don't worry," Minako was saying to Artemis, "the others are looking for Setsuna-san. If anyone can fix this, she can."

"Even if they can find her, and we all know that the Guardian of Time will be found only when she wants to be, she won't be able to do anything. She isn't allowed to change the past, remember?" Artemis spoke with barely contained contempt, whether for the woman or the rule, Quatre couldn't tell.

"She isn't allowed to leave the Time Gate either," Minako replied with a wave of her finger and a grin, "but that's never stopped her before."

The conversation continued between the two, Artemis giving all the reasons why this search was ridiculous, and Minako giving all the reasons why they shouldn't give up. Though he never thought he'd think something of the sort, Quatre agreed with the white cat: as good a friend as this Usagi-chan must have been, she was dead. Nothing could bring someone back from the dead, except perhaps for Allah, but he had been somewhat lax in his faith for quite some time and no longer felt certain that Allah was a kind and benevolent spirit. The world was too full of evil and savagery for Allah to be anything other than a cruel trickster.

"I don't believe this!" Minako finally screamed, standing and disturbing Artemis' comfy place on her lap. "Usagi-chan wouldn't give up on any of us! She couldn't! She would search the ends of Earth and beyond to find a way to bring any of us back; how can we do any less for her?" Accusing tears sparkled in her blue eyes, stinging the cat from his guilty expression. "She has brought miracles to Earth, to all of us. It's our turn to bring a miracle to her."

Strangely enough, as Quatre looked on the anguished face of this girl as she spoke of her friend, he believed her. She claimed this girl could command miracles, and he must be insane because he believed her. Some deep part of himself screamed out that if anyone, any mortal, any living being could be pure enough to perform a miracle . . . it had been this Usagi-chan. She had touched these people, and now they had the power too, he could sense it. With her as motivation, Minako and the others could bring a miracle to pass.

And if they could, who was to say that he couldn't?

Quatre swallowed as that same deep part found a tiny spark of sudden and inexplicable hope.

~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~

Where the hell did Setsuna go? And what had happened to the Time Gate? There was no logical reason they should be traipsing about in blackness and mist in search of a Guardian of Time who rarely explained anything anyway. THEN when they finally found the Time Gate, to find no Guardian with it and find it in total disrepair. The answers were less likely to be found in this half-real world where things couldn't keep themselves straight and more likely to be down in the real world, where Usagi had died.

Died. Kami-sama, that word was so strange in connection with the golden haired princess. Age and Death were things that should not have been able to touch her, yet somehow Death had broken through and stolen her before any of them were given a chance to object. Damn if the world wasn't unfair.

Haruka looked down as she felt the lightest of touches at her arm. Michiru looked up at her with aqua eyes, usually so serene, now questing for answers even as they wondered after Setsuna. It unnerved Haruka to think of Michiru as lost, for she had always been the one who knew the way. From the very beginning Michiru conducted the symphony of their lives and duties. Anyone else might think Haruka led the pair, but how could she when Michiru had the knowledge? Haruka merely followed where the lovely one went and had faith in her ability to guide. It had never failed before. But now Michiru was just as lost as she and the world seemed off kilter.

Princess . . . we never knew how lost we all would be without you until today.

~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~

Wufei stared at the girls through his semi-thick lenses. He drew in a deep breath and adjusted the glasses higher on his nose. Directing his gaze to the run down doorway the women referred to as "the Gate of Time," Wufei took in the rusted hinges and doorknob, the moss-like substance growing over what must have been a white surface, and the crumbling . . . wood? Stone? He couldn't quite tell what material the door was made from.

"What is on the other side of this door?" he asked finally. A small sea of eyes shifted to him, all of which held fear and confusion. The woman Makoto's also held anger.

"The Time Warp. It's how Setsuna-san travels through Time when she finds it necessary."

"Is that all, are you certain?"

An impatient sigh from the tall Amazon.

"Yes, Wufei-kun, I'm sure."

He lapsed into a thoughtful silence and allowed them to return to their low-voiced debate on what to do. From the tone lacing all of their dulcet feminine accents he could tell that they'd never faced a situation quite like this one. Desperation clouded every motion of hands or blink, and Wufei felt despair radiating out from the cluster of sailor-suited girls.

Of all the strange people he'd met since his even more strange arrival, Wufei had yet to see the black-haired man do anything but cradle the corpse as though protecting it from outside harm. The Chinese man saw the clean bullet-wound on the woman's forehead and sniffed a bit at the thought of a man so deluded to think he could bring back a dead person. Without thinking he tread the distance between himself and where this man knelt with his precious burden. Feet scuffing the unseen floor, Wufei stopped and looked down.

"You're pathetic."

A pause. Then the man spoke.

"She's my wife."

"And you should be searching for her killer in order to avenge her, not crooning over her dead body in some hidden place of shadows." Wufei narrowed his eyes when he saw no reaction to his words. "If she was your wife and you loved her, then you are responsible for her soul. Avenge her murder."

"That's not how we do things," the man finally growled, looking up with dark blue eyes as intense as midnight. Wufei almost stumbled a step backward in spite of himself. "We protect the people of Earth, we don't kill them. Besides," he looked back to her, sadly wiping golden hair away from her forehead, unaware of the horrid stain on her beauty, "anyone who knew to strike out at Usako is more than human."

"So much more than human that they used a sniper rifle?"

But he was no longer listening. The man rocked his wife back and forth, eyes misting over again. There would be no reaching him. Wufei wondered in a far away part of his mind what he might do if Meiran were ever killed. A cold, strange shudder passed over his senses, something akin to déjà vu, so close it might as well be the same. The thought of Meiran dead caught in his throat. For a split second he glimpsed a not-quite memory of flowers and a sunny field of blood. Vaguely he saw through the haze of something almost remembered the eyes of the others on him, wondering, speculating. Soft hands came to rest on his shoulder and he blinked away the last misty remnants of the horrible vision that had visited him. The blue-haired one sometimes called Ami-chan, sometimes Mercury, looked on him with concerned eyes.

"Daijoubu?"

His fuzzy brain clicked away, finally translating the simple Japanese term.

"I am fine," he told her, backing away from her comforting hand. He cleared his throat, averting his gaze from theirs, trying to make believe like nothing at all had happened.

"Are you sure?" she asked, switching back to English.

"Yes, onna!" He watched her step away, a hurt expression crossing her eyes. He felt guilty, but not nearly as guilty as when he saw the murderous gaze of the woman who seemed determined to prove herself his equal in all ways, including anger. He seethed in frustration, but didn't relieve it by apologizing. Apologize? Such a thing was unthinkable. Not to a woman. No woman but Meiran. The chill reached for him again and his disciplined mind pushed it back.

"Setsuna wouldn't leave us here in a situation like this," the red-clad girl said as her friend re-joined their group, "Not when we need her so much. So something had to have happened to her."

Wufei sighed. Talking wasn't going to get them anywhere. Instead of joining the conversation, as if he had anything to add anyway, Wufei stepped forward to examine the thing that had caused such shock in the ranks.

Old and decrepit as it was, he could see clearly that all of the damage came from Time, none of it from usage. The door handle, though tarnished, was tarnished in all the same shade, revealing no stain marks from sweat. It hadn't been opened enough for that. He pushed his mouth down into a frown of concentration. Frowns helped him think. What did it mean when a door in a mystical plain had sat unused for what looked like the entire span of Time? Perhaps if he could see this Time Warp . . .

"I am going to open the door," he announced, for no particular reason.

"It's locked," called the one named Rei/Mars.

"I will open it anyway." Decision made, Wufei stepped close and grasped the handle, giving it a determined turn. It gave way easily beneath his grip and the door creaked open ever so slowly. He heard a gasp from behind as the wooden barrier revealed what it had hidden.

A chained and gagged woman.

END.