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January, 2010
As soon as they entered the club, both Taiki and Seiya grinned. Ever since she learned they were returning to Earth, Yaten had been looking forward to returning to a career on-stage. And since they had let her pick their destination for the evening, it was rather unsurprising that she had chosen a Karaoke bar. The song currently playing was from some bad movie that was old even when they had been on Earth before and the man singing wasn't helping the patrons' opinions.
"Are you sure this is what you want to do tonight, Yaten? We could always pick up a movie and head back to the 'house'." Seiya had found herself unable to call the mansion a house without putting quotes around it with her fingers. She felt silly every time she did it, but she was sure that it was larger than the palace they had left behind. She was also sure that, like the palace, she had yet to learn all of it's secrets.
"No, Seiya, we're not leaving. I don't care how uncomfortable the idea of singing again makes you." Yaten let go of her two friends as she headed for the bar.
Seiya frowned and followed the gray-haired woman. "It doesn't make me uncomfortable. I just don't see the point of it anymore. We planned on returning to it when we didn't know where Usagi and the others were and then when we couldn't contact them. Now we don't have to."
"I think it's more that she WANTS to, Seiya-chan." Taiki knew about the incident at the school and about Kakyuu's suspicions. She planned to go with Seiya the next day and talk to Jinia before they mentioned anything to Yaten. If Kakyuu was right, or even if she wasn't ... they had already decided that they would not stand in the way of the two being together anymore.
A female voice started singing in Japanese and the redhead turned to see the name of the song, but felt her heart stop when she saw the woman standing on the stage. "Seiya ..."
The dark-haired woman turned to see what her friend was staring at and gasped. Up on the stage was Jinia and a couple of the other teachers from the girls' school. She glanced over at Yaten about the same time the three women hit the English portion of the song. The gray-haired woman had turned at the same time she had and was staring in shock at the black-haired French teacher.
"Jinia ...."
The three women stared at the stage until the song was through. Both Seiya and Taiki then glanced at Yaten, waiting to see her reaction. They were both surprised when she just turned back to the bar and ordered another drink.
"Yaten? Aren't you going to ...?" Taiki glanced back toward the stage and saw Jinia and her friends moving to one of the tables close by.
"To what? That isn't her, Taiki. And even if it was ... it's been too long." Yaten downed her drink then grinned at her two friends as the next song started playing. "Think they'll have any decent songs in the list?"
Seiya smiled a little at the gray-haired woman then hooked her arm around her shoulders. "I'm sure we can find something worth trying. If nothing else, we'll just let Taiki sing lead and embarass herself."
Taiki made a face at her two companions. "Hey! I can sing. Granted, it's been a while since I've tried, but it's like riding a bicycle."
"And when was the last time you rode a bicycle?" Yaten grinned at her friends and pulled them over to put their names on the list. She glanced over to the table where Jinia and her friends were sitting and smiled.
Jinia watched the three women walk up to the songlist and felt her heart nearly stop when the gray-haired one turned to look at her.
"Jin? Hey, are you ok?" One of her friends, Genie, Orinda High's Theatre Arts teacher, waved a hand in front of her face then looked to see what had the Japanese woman's attention. "I didn't realize you were into women, Jinia. Is there something you want to tell us?"
"What?" Jinia shook her head then looked at her friend. She blushed slightly then started shaking her head. "No, it's nothing like that. She just ... she looks like an old friend of mine from Tokyo, that's all."
"Uh-huh. Ok, Genie, we have definitely got to find this girl a man before we lose her to the other team." Their other friend, Sierra, one of the school's English-as-a-Second-Language teachers, grinned as she returned to the table carrying drinks. The three women had met through their children, who were all about the same age. Sierra's daughter, Maria and Genie's son, Adam, were both in Jinia's French 2 class, while Maria and Hikari, Jinia's daughter, were both in Genie's Theatre 3.
Jinia made a face at her friends. "Trust me, that's not going to happen. I'm just looking for the right guy, ok." 'Or, rather, waiting on him to come back into my life.'
"Dema went where!?"
"To a club. With Uncle Seiya and Dema." Tanetomi was braiding Mi-ko's hair and smiled at the younger girl's reaction. "Don't worry, I think it's just some silly Karaoke bar."
"Definitely Dema's choice, then," Kai replied. The seven teenage girls were all spread out in the older girls' room. Since there were still tensions between the aliens and the Earthlings, the seven girls tended to spend most of their time there, rather than risk a run-in with one of the others. Aside from feeling a constant need to dodge their host and her friends, they found themselves adjusting to life on Earth rather easily. Teenagers were teenagers, no matter what planet they were from. There was a pile of magazines lying in the middle of the floor and they were taking turns helping each other with hair and make-up. Kai was currently helping Shi with a hair-style that the former Ice Queen had seen the blonde wear back on Kinmoku. "Ok, Shi, what do you think?"
Shi looked up from the magazine she was reading and froze when she saw her face in the mirror. She felt her entire body freeze as a strange face stared back at her. "Kai ..."
'Tomi smiled. "That looks cute, Shi. I haven't seen your hair like that since Halloween."
Tsuki grinned. "Yeah, it does. Hey, she looks just like Chiba-san."
Miyo paled, looking up from her own work on the redhead. "Kai, you had better take those down."
Shi glared at Tsuki's reflection in the mirror. "How dare you say that."
"What? It's true. With your hair like that, you do look like her." Tsuki glanced at the others, suddenly wondering when it had gotten so quiet ... and so hot.
"I thought you liked your hair like this, Shi." Kai reached to take them out, but had her hands smacked away by the blonde. "I'm sorry."
Shi looked at Kai and sighed. She knew she sometimes tended to frighten some of the younger girls, even when she wasn't trying to. "I'm sorry, Kai, Tsuki, I just ... I don't look like that idiot, Chiba, ok? How can I? I'm not a pathetic human."
Kimi had been walking by the room when she heard voices raised and had paused to listen to the conversation. She frowned at the door as she continued walking. 'I know she doesn't like mom, but ... I have to admit, she does look like her.'
Deja spotted Kimi coming down the stairs and motioned to her from the living room. "Hey, Mini-Moon, come on. It's your turn."
"Huh? Oh, sorry, Fire-breath." Kimi grinned at Deja's reaction to that nickname then sat down to take her turn at Monopoly, Universe Edition, their own version of the game made by Naru. "Dangit, I landed on the Zero Star again."
"And this time it has three Golden Palaces on it." Nereid grinned as the other girl handed her some of the fake money. "So, what was that fight upstairs about?"
The other girls, Deja and Hermetia, looked from Nereid to Kimi then back again. "What fight?" Hermetia asked. "Are you using your powers to listen to the aliens? You know your mom said not to do that."
Nereid made a face at Hermetia then looked at Kimi. "Well? What were they fighting about?"
"Why ask me? I'm sure you heard everything." Kimi sighed as she glanced at the board game in front of her. "All I heard was that the other girls think that Shi looks like mom."
Deja looked at her curiously. "That who looks like your mother?"
"Shi," Kimi replied. "S-H-I. The blonde with the bad attitude."
"Oh," Deja replied, blushing slightly. "Well, she kind of does look like your mom. If your mom were an alien."
The blonde's name had been a joke among the younger Senshi until it was explained that the twin aliens were named after Seiya's mother, Miyoshi. The birth of twins had surprised everyone and since Enishi's mother's name was difficult for even Hrrrrunai to pronounce, they decided to split the Kinmokunai name. The true pronounciation was slightly different than the English pronoun, but none of the humans had been able to master it yet.
Hermetia rolled the dice then glanced up at the others. "Actually, she doesn't look like the other aliens at all. She really looks like more like Sarah-chan." She landed on 'Community Chest' and reached for the card. She read it, then frowned. "Can you imagine if those two WERE related?"
"We're talking World War III," Kimi replied. She noticed Nereid seemed distracted and was about to ask her what was going on when someone slammed one of the upstairs doors open. Shi came down the stairs moments later, her hair still in odangoes, with Usami and 'Tomi following her.
"Calm down, it was just a joke. I'm sure Tsuki didn't mean it." 'Tomi shrank back from the cold look in the blonde's eyes.
"Yeah, well let's see how well you like it, Miss Soul Hunter." Shi glared at the blue-haired girl hiding behind Usami. "You look like you spent far too much time in the reactor core of a space-ship."
"Hey! You know I've never been in space until we left Kinmoku."
"Then how do you explain bright blue hair that's the same color as the reactor cores?"
"Genetics. My mother had blue hair and you know that, you ... mutant."
"Mutant? I am not a mutant!"
"Funny, that's what the doctors seemed to think when you were born."
"It's not my fault they can't explain 'Spontaneous Evolution'."
"Like I said, you're a mutant!"
"I am not a Mutant!!"
"Enough! I'm sick of listening to the two of you!" Usami glared at both girls then looked down the stairs at the audience they had drawn. The four girls that had been playing in the living room and several of the adults were all watching them from the hall. "If the two of you can't stop this bickering, I'm personally going to ..."
Shi glared at the black-haired princess. "Going to what, Princess? What have you ever 'personally' done? You've always had someone else to do your dirty work for you. Namely, us!" She put her hand over her mouth and looked at Usami with wide eyes. On Kinmoku, it was considered treason to speak that way to ANY member of the royal family, let alone the Crown Princess. "'S-'Sami, I-"
Usami stared at Shi for several moments before turning and going back up the stairs. The other Kinmokunai teenagers were all standing there watching the whole scene. Tsuki watched her sister walk past, then glared down at the blonde. "How dare you say such things to her? She is the heir to the throne of Kinmoku. You will treat her with respect!"
"She may be the heir, but you're nothing but a royal pain in the ass!" Shi glared at the younger princess until she followed her sister back to the bedroom. It was only then that the blonde realized that nearly everyone else in the house had heard the whole fight. Glaring at anyone that came near her, Shi stalked out of the house.
'Tomi stood in shock on the stairs for several moments until she felt Rsin pull on her sleeve. "Hey, little one," she replied, reaching down to pick up the younger girl. As she carried her back to her room, she felt her other self wanting out, wanting to teach Shi a lesson for being so rude to her. To her! To the one and only ...
"Soul Hunter?" Nereid watched the aliens disperse and was glad that, for once, most of the smaller kids were in the back of the house, playing and hopefully wouldn't have heard the argument. She glanced across the hallway and saw her mother watching the aliens. She was about to go ask her mother what the older girls meant when Deja grabbed her arm and pulled her back into the game.
Nereid had nearly forgotten her question by the next morning, but was reminded of it when she saw the blue-haired girl at breakfast. "Maman, can I ask you something?"
Michiru smiled at her daughter. "Of course, Neri-chan. What is it that you wanted to ask?"
Nereid glanced around the kitchen, and since it was only her, her mother, Tanetomi, Usagi, Rei-chan, Seiya (who was looking slightly green) and Rsin, she felt safe enough to ask. "What is a 'Soul Hunter'?"
Usagi dropped her cup of green tea and stared at the younger Senshi. "What did you say?"
Michiru and Seiya quickly cleaned up the broken glass as Nereid repeated the question.
"Shi-san called 'Tomi-san a 'Soul Hunter'. I was just curious ..."
"Tanetomi is ... A long time ago, there was a planet called Cocoon. 'Soul Hunter' is what a Senshi of the planet was called because her powers relied on the souls of the dead." Seiya turned to face the others and noticed Tanetomi was avoiding everyone's gaze.
Usagi watched the blue-haired girl for several moments then smiled at Nereid. "Neri-chan, I think Taiki-chan is downstairs with Kageshirou-san. Why don't you take the girls and see if you can find them?"
Nereid glanced at her mother, then sighed. "Get used to this, girls. They shoo you out of conversations until you're a teenager," she replied, taking one hand of each girl and walking to the elevator.
Michiru bit back a smile at her daughter's comment. "It's not like we can actually hide anything from you, Neri-chan," she replied as the doors closed. She then turned to Usagi. "Is this something I should leave the three of you alone for?"
"No, Michiru-san," Seiya replied. He walked over to Tanetomi and placed a hand on her shoulder. When the younger woman looked up, he smiled. "They need to know, 'Tomi-chan."
"Need to know, what?" Michiru glanced from the former singer to Usagi nervously.
"That Tanetomi is Papillon." Usagi smiled at the younger girl as her head snapped around. "I wondered what had become of all of you."
"Papillon ... as in Heavy Metal Papillon? Galaxia's 'final solution'?" Michiru stared at the younger woman in shock for a moment, then quickly composed herself. "I guess it's not ... THAT surprising, really."
Tanetomi glanced over at the two adults and frowned. "You aren't ... upset?"
Usagi shook her head. "Not really." She told the other girl a little about who they thought some of the kids were. "And Luna thinks that little Celeste is Tin Nyanko."
"I don't think I ... she ... Papillon ever met her. Lead Crow was the only one I ever really knew." 'Tomi smiled a little. "I guess that explains why little Tomi-chan likes me so much."
"Probably," Michiru replied. She sat back down beside Usagi and motioned for Seiya to join them. "So, do you know if any of the others are reincarnates?"
Seiya shrugged as he sat beside 'Tomi. "We're not sure. Of the ones that we have seen transform, 'Tomi is the only one that we recognized." He noticed that the younger woman still seemed nervous and told her to go check on her younger siblings. Once she was gone, he looked at Usagi. "We didn't tell you before because of ... what happened all those years ago."
Usagi smiled. "That's understandable, but I forgave all of them a long time ago for what happened. Why would I hold a grudge against an innocent now?"
Seiya frowned. "That's just it ... Papillon's not an innocent."
