Gundam Wing Fan Fiction / Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Mended Wing ❯ Mended Wing - Chapter Six ( Chapter 6 )

Authors Notes: Hey all. I'm trying I new font. I'm not sure it'll even show up on ff.net, but I got tired of the same old. Anyways, I'm sorry the last chapter was so short, but I wasn't… you know… FEELING it… and I've learned that when you get stuck on something, best thing to do is end it and move on to the next. So I ended that chapter and I've moved on. Little thing: in the scenes with Masurao and Rei, it is to be assumed that they are speaking Japanese to each other, since they are both Japanese. Thankies: Marika Webster: ::sniffles and looks generally dejected:: Trenchcoat Man: Aishiteru and all that happy crap. ;o) Fuuzaki-chan: Little bunny Fuufuu… Rashaka-chan: Where are you? ::sniff, sniff:: Girl-chama: It's a small, small chapter. Maybe not too many typos. And to all you cool people who hang around and read my stuff. Gods know why…

Disclaimer: They aren't mine, not a one of them. Well, not yet anyway. ::grins wickedly::

Mended Wing - Chapter Six

Triton sighed. Beside him on the bed stretched the white cat, who hadn't moved since the terrible words that had been spoken. Feeling sorry for it, Triton lifted a heavy hand and stroked the soft fur. A low and broken purr rose from the feline. The young man felt pity for this animal and what it must be feeling, but he realized then that he couldn't really understand. He hadn't lost anyone in such a violent manner.

Unless you count Katherine.

Triton gritted his teeth and sat up. He didn't count Katherine. He didn't know his sister was dead. He didn't know that she hadn't found someone better than Raul and settled somewhere.

But you don't know that Raul didn't kill her either.

The door opened, interrupting his train of thought and for that he was grateful. A blonde head poked through and Minako's red-rimmed eyes gazed on him, their weariness evident. She smiled at him, the corners of her mouth quivering.

"I just thought I'd let you know that dinner is ready."

"Hai, Minako-san. Arigatou. " he replied in butchered Japanese at best. It was worth it to see her smile widen a bit, and hear a laugh from her, no matter how weak. Men may have been his preferred prey… he smiled at that thought… but Minako held a joy in her that shouldn't be quenched. He could tell from just this short time he'd seen her. If he could keep her happy, he would, even if she were female.

"I'm going to have to teach you Japanese."

"I'm going to have to teach you Spanish, but only after I teach you how to really shop!"

They shared a good laugh over that one, a laugh that woke the cat and sent it grumbling to a further corner of the bed. Minako sighed and crossed into the room, scooping the animal into her arms.

"Gomen ne, Artemis. Did we upset you?"

"I can't be more upset than I already am," the cat replied, it's . . . his . . . masculine voice surprising Triton still. "Our princess is dead. The Guardian of Time is missing. Our five best chances for help know nothing about us or themselves." The cat sounded distinctly agitated. Triton felt a sharp guilt for not being what this cat obviously thought he should, even if there were no helping his amnesia.

"Minako-san," Triton looked up at her and pleaded with his eyes, "tell me what's going on here, why I'm here and what you expect me to do."

She paused and looked at him with sad eyes, stroking her little cat with almost absent fingers. Her silence trailed behind her as she walked over to the vanity and stared at her own reflection. What she looked for in the depths of her own eyes Triton could not be certain, but it seemed as if she were trying to find that part of herself that allowed excuses, allowed her to be here while her other friends were searching for an answer.

"It's a very long story Trowa-kun. Gomen, nasai, Triton-kun." She set Artemis down on the table, where he sat straight and looked on her in stern manner. "It starts a thousand years ago . . ." The impossible statement rolled off her tongue in the way absolute truth does when spoken in innocence. The story that followed of her own past in the Silver Millennium and as the solider of love, Sailorvenus in the present, held Triton in a spell of dreams. He fully expected the good Queen of the Moon to destroy the evil with a wave of her wand and bring back all of the lives stolen on that far off kingdom. Instead, she died, leaving the destiny of her daughter and court to the future. Minako spoke of their lives in Tokyo, beginning with her own induction to the world of the Senshi as Sailor V. Then she explained the discovery of the Princess and the surprise they had all felt at finding their long lost Tsuki no Hime in Tsukino Usagi. He saw the tenderness at the corners of her eyes, though, and knew that Usagi lived up to the life she had known and lived on the Moon.

"But what does that have to do with me? Or the rest of those men?" Triton waited for her answer, a thick ball of anxiety growing in the bottom of his stomach. An instinct told him that this part of her story would not be as mystical as the first.

"Seven years ago, Usagi-chan vanished for a few months. Everyone was really worried about her. When she reappeared we expected her family to ground her forever, but they didn't even seem to remember she'd been gone." A faint smile passed over the delicate features of her face, and Triton thought he could see why she had come into the position of the Senshi of love. "She told us that Setsuna-san, the woman we're looking for, had taken her four thousand years into the future. She said that there was a war going on, that the Senshi and their magic had been forgotten. She met five boys there, a year younger than her except for one, and these boys were exceptional in many ways."

Here, the blonde woman stopped and looked deep into Triton's eyes, as though searching for a sign that what she had to say next would not destroy him. When he nodded, she bit her lip but continued.

"The five boys piloted amazing machines called Gundams, and were the front runners of the war. Each boy was trained to kill. Each boy would do so at a moment's notice and not feel any regret. Their names were Hiiro, Duo, Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei."

"Trowa . . . that's the name you called me. And Masurao, you called him Hiiro once."

"Yes."

He blinked and pushed himself back onto the bed, pulling the sheets to cover his body. Her words were foreign to him, unbelievable. A killer, she said he was, a ruthless killer with no regard for human life.

She must have seen this last thought in his face.

"Usagi-chan told us that the boys killed without regret, but not without reason. They fought as they did because their homes, space colonies, were in danger of takeover by an organization known as OZ, and the boys wanted to save the colonies from this fate. But Setsuna-san had seen a terrible future in store for them and in violation of one of the most direct rules of her station, Setsuna-san took direct action to change that future by bringing Usagi-chan there to help them." Minako smiled and placed a hand on his knee. "And she did. Usagi-chan spoke often of you and the others, kindly. You were all very close friends, who cared for each other. You saved the colonies as you set out to do and did so without sacrificing you own lives, as Setsuna-san had been afraid would happen. You survived, and were heroes.

"You're here because of this situation. The Setsuna-san of the future felt that something was about to happen and sent the five of you here to help us." Minako hesitated. "Actually, we can only assume it was her, and that was the reason. She never spoke to us, and the Setsuna-san of this time knew nothing about it. Now we can't find her. Anyway, that's not the point. The point is because we didn't know what was about to happen, we had no warning. We couldn't stop it. Usagi-chan . . . well, you know." She didn't turn to look in the direction of the faintly feline sniffle that drifted from her vanity table. "With Usagi-chan . . . you know . . . the entire future has been changed, because he doesn't live to form Crystal Tokyo, thereby giving the governments of the future a template to go by. Your governmental system is probably very different from that of Crystal Tokyo, or from the government you were supposed to have."

"Earth is a dictatorship," Triton answered, feeling an eerie chill trickle down his spine as he spoke, "ruled by a family that is known only as the Counts. In reality, the entire government is ruled by one man, Sir Asterfel, and the rest of the family is only there for show. It's been this way for generations. The head man is always named Sir Asterfel, and he always takes over after the previous man dies. We don't know whether they are fathers and sons, or merely the member of the family most qualified to take over the job."

Minako frowned at his summary of the government of his time. Apparently she found something she didn't like about the system.

"Crystal Tokyo will be a democratic monarchy. Serenity, Usagi-chan, and her husband Endymion, will rule as NeoQueen and King, but the people will have a say in all laws passed and any governmental action taken. Usagi-chan told us that the government of your time, when she was there, was a military government, but after the war there were plans to form an alliance of sorts, in which the Earth would be considered united and the colonies would be invited to take part in the government should they so desire."

"That's very different from what I know."

"Yes, it is, and we have to figure out why. Something about the way things are in your Timeline may hold the key as to why Usagi-chan was killed now."

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

Masurao looked over the room in which he had been directed to stay. It felt enough like home, with its futon mattress and traditional Japanese wall hangings, so that he didn't miss his family as much as he might have. Still . . . home, if he could believe these women and what they told him, was a very long time away.

He sighed and lay flat on the futon, hands resting beneath his head and stared up at the ceiling while wondering what his little sisters were doing. Aiko and Biko always found trouble despite the warnings of their parents. Masurao suspected that their father, at least, didn't mind the girls' antics so much because they usually turned out so amusing. Usually. The turtles . . . well, that hadn't been so amusing. At six years old, though, how could they be expected to know that turtles couldn't survive as well in the toilet as in their bowl? Especially when flushed.

He chuckled lightly at the thought. He missed the twins very much and wanted to return to them. Aiko looked up to him, being the more sensitive and academically driven of the two. Biko didn't look up to anyone but herself, possessing a streak of wild independence that would either made her very popular one day or keep her socially isolated, depending on which way she chose to use her personal strength.

A knock on the flimsy panel door woke him from his daydreams.

"Hai?" It felt good to speak his native language.

"Would you like some tea, Masurao-kun?" Rei's voice sounded far away, though she stood only on the other side of the door. Masurao paused to consider this offer, and finally decided that tea would be a good decision.

"Yes, I think I would." He rose and joined Rei in the living area where she and her grandfather met for tea. She watched him with an expression of faint wistfulness as he sat in the place across from her and next to the little old man who ran the Hikawa temple. "What is it?"

Violet eyes rose to meet his, and her cheeks colored.

"It's nothing."

"That's where Yuuichiru used to sit," Grandpa said as he nodded in a sage manner, knowing look on his face. Masurao sat shocked as Rei grabbed a broom and threatened her grandfather with serious bodily harm. The old man didn't seem in the least bit disturbed by his granddaughter's behavior and sipped his tea as though nothing at all were wrong.

"Rei-san, do you think you should be treating your ojii-san like that?"

"Like what?" She tilted her head sideways and gave him a truly puzzled look. She still held the broom in her hand.

"Eh, nevermind." The three sat in silence for the next few minutes, sipping tea. Masurao glanced at the house around him, the peculiar little man, and most of all the beautiful woman with whom he would be living until this crisis worked itself out. Oh yes, he recognized her beauty. There could be no denying that. She possessed a very classic sort of beauty, with dark lashes framing her eyes and long, ebony hair that shined in the light. Perfect skin and naturally red lips completed the look that no man . . . well, no man other than that Triton guy, could resist.

Through it all he couldn't help but see light brown hair tipped with blue and black-painted lips. Rel . . . how was she? Did she miss him as he missed her, or had she forgotten him the moment he vanished to this distant place? Masurao dropped his gaze into his tea, looking there for the answers he sought.

"Masurao-kun," Rei's voice cut through his musings, and he looked up again to see her set her cup gently on the table, "do you know why you are here?"

He studied her a moment longer and thought about his situation before even attempting to answer. When he felt his mind was in order, he opened his mouth and let the words pour out.

"I can honestly say I have no idea."

Rei gave what he assumed was supposed to be a mysterious priestess smile and sighed. Her long hair fell around her face as she bowed her head and seemed to sink into a bog of thoughts he didn't think were of fluffy bunnies and gumdrops. Every movement she made came as though underwater, slow, graceful, and with purpose. When she looked up again her eyes were clear violet pools of doubt and worry.

"We thought you five were going to help us, though we didn't know ho-"

Four men crashed through the temple wall. In the flurry of the next few moments, Masurao had time only to notice that they wore all black, even over their faces. He tried to fling himself over the low table to protect Rei, but his arms were grabbed from behind. Rei scrambled away, towards her grandfather, who knocked down one of the masked intruder's despite the little man's age. Impressive, but not enough to protect him from the shock of the electric rifles the men carried. Masurao heard the shot, the whiz of the wires flying past his face, and the buzzing electricity jolting over the wires. Grandpa's pained grunt mingled with Rei's scream.

"Kuso!" Masurao struggled against the arms that held him. The man told him to be still, and the voice was low, distorted, obviously by some electronic means. "Let me go!" He didn't really expect his demand to see results, but who knew, maybe it would work.

"Not a chance."

Or not.

Then a heavy object came down on his head and the last thing Masurao heard was one of the men calling in to report the mission complete.

End Chapter Six.