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October, 2009
The older girls spent most of the summer of 2009 brushing up on their English skills when not going to classes at Juuban High. Kakyuu's younger daughter, Tsuki, had enrolled in Junior High at the end of summer. The rest of the Kinmokunai children were still in space and being taught by tutors.
Kakyuu and Seiya cleared out the building the guys had lived in when they were on Earth the last time and Yaten had managed to oversee the sorting of everything in the three Royal Guard ships. The houses Kakyuu had looked at were far too small for their purposes and after the White House incident, she had heard very little from the realtor or Mrs. Asugawa. Life had become somewhat routine for the aliens.
Since the move to America seemed to be off, they were once more looking into finding a home in Tokyo. But to do that, they needed money. To get it, they had to convince their former manager and agents that they were actually who they said they were.
"You know, this would be a lot easier if we actually DID have our fingerprints on file somewhere." Yaten had teleported down from the ship again and was sitting with Seiya inside the office of their former producer. He sighed as he looked at all of the records along the wall. The only record the three had made was among the gold and platinum plated discs. From what they had found out so far, after their 'breakup' and subsequent 'disappearance', sales of their music had gone through the roof. Everyone loved a scandal and missing singers were definitely a scandal, especially when it was rumored that they had been killed at the last concert and the government was covering it up.
Seiya nodded, glancing at the papers on the producers desk. "It's not even like we can give them anyone's name to verify our identity," he replied. Since the door to the office was open slightly, the two men were speaking quietly in their native Kinmokunai. They didn't want to take any chances and let something slip that didn't fit the cover story. "We just have to hope that this guy remembers us enough to figure it out."
"We could always have them contact Sister Angela," Yaten replied. He knew that the former school teacher/nun had been one of the first people Seiya contacted after coming back to Tokyo. "Or even Wakagi-sensei. She can verify we are who we say we are."
The two former singers stopped talking as the door was pushed open and a man in his mid-forties came into the room. He smiled at the two, nodding slightly. "I didn't think I'd ever see you boys again. Where's Taiki-san? Did he decide not to come back?"
Yaten smiled at the older man and shook his head. "He is having trouble getting things together back in Russia," he replied in Japanese. "He should be here in a couple of weeks."
Seiya nodded, remembering the details they had worked out in advance. He had been living with his late wife and family in Africa. He had gained guardianship of his two younger half-sisters, Miyo and Shi, shortly after their mother died. It was her death that caused the trio to stop performing and leave Tokyo altogether.
Taiki had moved several times after the strange incidents that had begun occurring in Tokyo and had gained custody of his younger brother and sister a few years later. Since then, he had been living in Russia with his friend Kakyuu and her daughters.
Yaten spent a few years travelling around Japan, but never settled in one place for very long. He ended up travelling to Italy and living in a small village with his wife, daughters and son.
The producer nodded, then handed a couple of forms to the younger men. "Well, when you vanished on us, without leaving so much as a forwarding address, all we could do was continue to dump the money into your joint account. That's how much we've paid into the account over the last 12 years. And, of course, no one's been able to touch it but the three of you. You boys shouldn't have to worry about anything for quite a while."
Seiya looked over the forms he had been given and nodded. It would take time to sort everything out, but it looked as if the manager was right. They'd have plenty of money for them and their immediate families to live on for a while, IF they were staying on Earth. "That's good. At least we won't have to worry about ONE thing."
The producer watched them for several moments, then cleared his throat. "Eh, if you don't mind my asking, why did you come back? You've apparently been doing rather well for your selves without your music, why come back to it now?"
"I wouldn't say we had been 'doing well' without it, but we've survived," Yaten replied. He glanced over at Seiya, this was one thing they had forgotten to discuss. "But now that the girls are older ... I don't know about the others, but I kind of miss it."
"You miss living in a bus, touring the country, singing in a different place every night?" Seiya smiled a little at his friend and shrugged. "Guess I do too. Not so much the groupies and the fame, as doing what I love to do. Maybe now that the girls are older, we can finally be the teenagers we never were."
The producer smiled. "Now we just have to see whether or not the three of you can still sing. If you feel like waiting on Taiki-san, that is. We can always set you up with individual deals."
Yaten shook his head. "We work better as a team. We've spent too much time working alone lately." He stood and walked over to the wall where a picture of the 'Three Lights' hung beside their record. "Besides, how many of those would have sold if it was just 'One Light'?"
October 31, 2009
Shi waited until the adults were all gone before motioning the other girls out of their rooms. "Now's our chance. Come on."
"Are you sure we should be doing this, Shi-chan? I mean ... won't we get into trouble?" Miyo fiddled with the short-skirted outfit nervously. She was dressed to look like Sailor Jupiter, complete with rose earrings. Her long brown hair was pulled into a ponytail with a green holder. "They're sure to get pissed if we're imitating them."
Shi rolled her eyes at her sister. She was dressed as Sailor Moon, complete with Crescent Wand. Beside her, Tanetomi was dressed as Sailor Mercury, her long blue hair pulled back at her neck and blue sunglasses in place of a visor. Usami was dressed as Sailor Mars, her black hair loose and reaching to her knees. It had taken a lot of talking to convince the normally shy princess to dress in the very immodest outfit, but the promise of adventure had proved too much for even her.
"Come on, Miyo-chan. You've seen the same reports I have. No one has seen any of the Senshi in months. They haven't seen most of them in close to a year." Shi made sure that no one was around then headed toward one of the outer rooms of the house. "If we can get their attention then we can make this whole trip actually worth something."
'Tomi nodded, hooking her arm with the blonde's. "We should be able to get their attention quite easily. We all do have powers, after all. We can at least give them a good light show." She winked at the others as several butterflies surrounded her.
Usami rolled her eyes, snapping her fingers. A small fireball danced around them for a moment then the four teenagers found themselves standing on top of a building in downtown Los Angeles. She was the only one strong enough yet to be able to teleport the number of people the distance their little 'trick' required. "Best chances of getting their attention, go for the biggest city near their home."
"Now we just have to wait for the perfect moment for the 'Senshi' to make a public appearance." Shi looked down toward the city, watching for any sign of trouble.
"But ... they've had at least a decade's worth of spotting the 'Senshi'. How do we even know they'll take notice anymore?" Miyo watched her sister, then glanced down to see what had caught the other woman's attention. On the street below, several people were standing around a woman dressed as a Sailor Senshi, listening to her advertise a new movie that had just opened. "Ok, so maybe they will take notice. But won't it seem odd if there are only four? I thought you said there were five of them?"
Shi shrugged, watching the city below them. "I definitely remember these four and I think there was another one, in orange. But we don't have a fifth to play her. Kageshirou-chan refused to come to Earth yet, Tsuki-chan went with Kakyuu-hime to Kensington and Kai-chan and Mi-ko-chan are still a month away. Besides, those three are the biggest little rats in all of the Kingdom. We would have gotten busted for sure." She smirked slightly, looking at her twin. "We could always get Rei-chan to help us, if you want to carry her."
Miyo made a face at her sister. "No thanks. We really would get in trouble for bringing her here."
"Alright, our best bet is going to be to split up and see if we can find anything." 'Tomi handed the twins a comm. device then grabbed Usami's arm. "We'll head North, you guys go South. We have about three hours before we'll be missed."
The Mercury look-alike teleported several buildings from their original destination, before turning her attention to her companion. "Where do you think we should start? I have no clue how things work on this planet, so ..."
"I think the whole point is just to be seen. We should find somewhere where there are a lot of people, preferably outdoors." The Mars look-alike looked around the city, then motioned to a park where they appeared to be having an outdoor concert. "Looks like as good a place as any."
The two fake 'Senshi' made their way to the park, hiding in the trees while they waited for a good time to make an appearance.
A few miles away and a couple of hours later, the other fake 'Senshi' had already scared the crap out of a would-be rapist, a drug dealer and two 'thugs' staking out a convenience store. "This is getting us nowhere," the blonde replied. They had definitely been noticed, but with no sign of the real 'Senshi', the girls were beginning to get disappointed. The comm. unit in her hand beeped. "Kyei?"
"Tareshk y di'al."
Miyo rolled her eyes at her cousin's comment about the concert and took the comm. unit. This was the fifth comment the blue-haired girl had made about the singers abs. "You don't have to use that language. Nobody here speaks Japanese, remember?" She glanced around at the crowd and noticed that no one seemed to be watching them. "We'll be right there."
Shi made a face at her sister, then teleported from the street to the park where the others were waiting. Miyo followed moments later. Neither girl noticed the white-haired man that had been following them for several blocks. He walked out into the street and picked up one of the flower petals that had been left behind by one of the girls. After looking it over for a moment, he pulled a phone from his pocket and called his wife. "Luna, I think we may have a problem."
"Definitely Sakura blossoms." Luna looked up from the flower petals to the pictures her husband had also placed in front of her. The blonde in the picture did bear an uncanny resemblance to the old Sailor Moon, but if what her husband said was right, there was a lot more to the story. "You said they teleported."
Artemis shook his head. "Not so much teleported, as ... vanished. Kind of like ... I hate to say it, because I'm afraid of what it might mean, but ... it was kind of like Zoisite's little disappearances."
"But he's dead. And we would have known if he had been reborn on Earth, right?" At this, Luna glanced over to Naru, who was busily making notes from several large books she had spread out.
"Yes. We try to find as many 'Senshi' as we can as soon as they are born, but there are also a few souls we keep a constant check for." Naru glanced over her notes, nodded, then walked over to the table Luna had the pictures on. She muttered something in a language the other two didn't know, then frowned. "And unfortunately, we've just found two of them."
Artemis looked at the pictures and frowned. "How? Those girls have to be at least fifteen. For them be Them, they would have had to ... "
"Be born in another time," Naru finished. She picked up the picture and looked at the eyes of the girl dressed as Jupiter. "I think we need to tell Usagi-chan."
Back in Tokyo, the four concert goers got back later than expected. To their relief, however, the B&B seemed quiet as they teleported to their shared room. "That was awesome. Dema didn't say anything about Earth music being so ..." 'Tomi grinned as she began imitating one of the guitarists.
"Loud." Usami replied. She removed the costume and changed into her bedclothes. "Haven't you ever listened to any of those discs Uncle Yaten brought back with him? I've never heard so much ..."
"Drivel? Unfortunately, that seems to be all these Earthlings are capable of creating." Shi changed as well, but left her hair pulled up into the odangoes.
Miyo leaned against the wall as she fought to remove the gloves. "I seem to recall you actually liking Earth music last time around. Especially 'Broadway Showtunes'." She dodged the pillow her sister threw as she ducked into the bathroom.
'Tomi seemed to be ignoring the conversation going on around her as she continued to rattle on about how cute the lead guitarist was, but she was betting the drummer would be a much better kisser. It was only after she said she wanted to go back to see them again that she realized no one else was talking. She glanced at her friends then noticed that Kakyuu and Seiya were standing in the doorway, glaring at them. "Oops."
"Oops is right," Seiya replied. He stepped into the room as Miyo stepped out of the bathroom, still wearing the tiara and carrying the green fuku. "I see. Would some one care to explain what's going on?"
Shi sighed and turned to face her father. "It was my idea. I thought if we could get ourselves seen, we could coax the 'Senshi' out of hiding. Plus, we wanted to get an idea of what Earth is like."
"Earth is a very dangerous place, Shi. Here you are not protected just because of who your parents are. This world doesn't care about things like that." Seiya looked to Kakyuu, then back at the girls. "The four of you are grounded, literally. You are to stay here. No going back and forth to the ship, no teleporting around town and Absolutely NO going out of the country."
Miyo dropped her eyes to the floor during her father's rant. "How did you ... how did you know where we went?"
Kakyuu turned on the TV in the small room and it showed an international news channel. They were airing a report from the woman Shi and Miyo had saved from the rapist, a Japanese tourist by the name of Ruruna. She described the two girls in perfect detail and even said that they were just how she remembered them. She then went on to tell of how she had seen these 'Angels' before, in Tokyo, and that she was glad to see that Sailor Moon had lost her black wings. Kakyuu muted the TV, then looked at the twins. "You couldn't know this, but the Senshi have changed drastically from what is in your minds. It would seem they are a lot less forgiving now than they used to be."
"You had better be glad you didn't come across them, for your own sakes." Seiya sighed, watching the girls as the TV station repeated what it had been playing all night, videos of the so-called 'Angel of Death' and her friends. One by one, he saw the realization of what they had done sink in. "Please, put the costumes away. Don't even think about putting them on, or of using your powers. Not until we've had a chance to talk to them."
Kakyuu and Seiya left the four girls to watch the news and walked back to the small upstairs living room. "Do you think it's such a good idea to scare the girls like that?" Kakyuu asked as she began to make tea.
Seiya shrugged. "Probably not. But with everything that's been going on in that country, we don't need them making things worse. It will be hard enough getting to Usagi-chan now. If she thinks there are people out there pretending to be her and her friends ..." Seiya couldn't help but remember the look on Usagi's face from the news reports after the White House incident. So far, they had managed not to tell the girls that the wheelchair-bound blonde was the same Sovereign they were here to seek. "I know they are just teenagers, but they don't understand this world. And I know for a fact that that can only lead to problems."
"Then perhaps tomorrow you should take some time to show the girls around Tokyo. This was your home for a while, after all. They need to see that side of this world, too." Kakyuu finished making her tea then said goodnight to Seiya.
The black-haired former singer sighed as he stared at the ceiling. Images of the battles he and the other StarLights fought were the first things to spring to mind at Kakyuu's suggestion. But the more he thought, the more he realized that she was right, there were things about this world that the girls had never seen before. And if Usagi agreed to help them take back Kinmoku, they may never get the chance to see them again. He thought about contacting Yaten to join them, but after the meeting with the record exec, Yaten had gone back to his family on his ship and since Fuminori couldn't teleport and none of the kids were very good at it, they were planning on taking a shuttle to Earth once they had the house in California.
Seiya woke the next morning when he felt something pulling on his hair. Opening his eyes, he saw a familiar face watching him. "Ohayo," he replied, smiling at the youngest of his daughters. He stood and stretched, trying to get the kinks out of his back from sleeping on the couch all night. Reaching down to take her hand, he glanced around the apartment. The older girls were in the kitchen, making breakfast. "Where is Kakyuu-sama?"
Usami was helping Miyo cook. "She said she had to take care of something on the ship. She left a few minutes ago." The black-haired Princess had been roped into being the brunette's 'official helper' after the blonde claimed Miyo had deliberately tried to catch her hair on fire.
Seiya smiled slightly. 'I guess she wants to make sure I don't have a choice.' He chuckled a little, picking up his youngest daughter, then walking into the kitchen. "You really do look like your Aunt Makoto, Mi-chan," he replied. "Especially when you're cooking."
Miyo paused in her cooking for a moment. "Makoto? She is ... Sailor Jupiter?"
"Hai. Oh, that's right, we never told you there names, did we?" Seiya put the little girl, Rei, into a chair. "Kino Makoto is Jupiter. Kaiou Michiru is Neptune. Tomoe Hotaru is Saturn. Meiou Setsuna is Pluto. Mizuno Ami is Mercury-"
"So that's where that name came from," Tanetomi replied. She grinned slightly as she finished setting the table.
Seiya nodded. "You were all named for someone close to us. Let's see ... Aino Minako is Venus. Hino Rei is Mars."
"That's my name," the five year old replied.
"Funny, I thought your name was brat." Shi winked at her sister as she placed a cup of juice in front of her.
"No, that's your name," Miyo replied, grinning. She then turned to her father. "But that's only seven. According to what we saw on the news, there a lot more than that."
Nodding again, Seiya sat beside the youngest girl. "I don't know how many there are now, but there were nine we were here. The other two are Tenou Haruka, Sailor Uranus. And their leader, Sailor Moon, Chiba Usagi."
Shi frowned. "Don't you mean, Tsukino Usagi? At least, that's what I seem to remember you saying her name was before."
Seiya sighed, staring at his hands. "That was her maiden name. She's married now, though. As for the others, I don't know ... Saku--Wakagi-sensei mentioned husbands, but I can't remember all of their names right now or who was married to who."
"Then we should go to the other Kingdom and find them," Shi replied. "You know the name of their leader, the others won't be hard to find."
Miyo glared at her sister. "Shi! You know what Dema said last night. We're lucky they didn't try to kill us."
"Stay out of this, Miyo." Seiya turned to the blonde. "Shi, we can't. Something very ... very bad happened a couple of months ago and Usagi ... they lost some people very close to them. It's too soon to ask for their help."
Shi seemed to think for several moments then looked back at her father. "You're too scared to ask her, aren't you?" she asked as she sat on the other side of Rei.
"Yes, I am. Things have changed since I was here last. I'm not sure that they have changed for the better." Seiya smiled sadly at the blonde, then walked over to help Miyo finish breakfast. "Once we get through eating, I have a surprise for all of you. We're going on a tour of the city."
"But, I thought we were in trouble," Usami replied.
"You are. But so am I. I realize that I ... that we haven't told you much of this world. I intend to fix that today."
