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Earth
Urani watched his little brother playing with Yo-Ichi and smiled slightly. Hiko seemed to have become best friends with the other boy almost immediately, even though Yo-Ichi was closer in age to Rei. She had latched on to Hikari and Kai, much the same way he imagined she had Miyo and Shi.
Jinia was teaching all three boys English when she came home from school in the afternoons. After the first lesson, in which Urani pulled every answer from her mind, rather than actually pay attention, she had asked both boys to not use their powers around her. Since then, Kai was always close by to make sure nothing was being lost in the translation.
It had taken a while to convince Hiko that not everyone was like them and that some people didn't want their thoughts to be read. Once the younger boy had understood that, he closed his mind off to everyone. Even Urani couldn't read the thoughts going through his head now.
"You know, it might be more beneficial if you actually payed attention to your lessons," Kai replied, in Japanese.
Urani jumped and turned to a smirking Jinia. "G-Gomen."
Jinia chuckled slightly. "You know, I'm used to my students at school tuning me out. I guess I really do need to work on my teaching skills, huh?"
"N-No, it isn't that, I'm just ..."
"I know. We're all worried." Jinia sat down beside the blue-eyed boy and smiled a little. Hikari and Kai seemed to be the only children not related to him that he ever relaxed around and she suspected that it was because they didn't hug him every time they saw him. "I'm sure Kageshirou-san will be back soon. And when he does come back, your sisters will never let you go."
Urani smiled a little. "Probably, but them I can deal with. I can block them out, I think I always could. With the others, it's ..."
"You see things when they hug you. Things that haunt their every waking moment." Kai smiled a little at her cousin. "Maybe the lessons you should be taking, aren't from Jinia-mama, but from Hiko-chan."
Hiko glanced up when he heard his name and grinned at the three sitting on the couch. "Kari's home."
Jinia smiled slightly. "To be honest, that's a little creepy how he does that," she replied. She switched to English as she heard the front door open. "We're in the living room, Hikari."
Kai laughed a little when the older girl stuck her head into the room a moment later. Hikari dropped Rei's bags just inside the door and grinned at the two little boys. "Ok, which one ratted us out this time?" Rei had asked to be taken to the mansion to pick up some things Kakyuu hadn't packed. She had only been allowed to drive the smaller girl because one of Kageshirou's shipmates had been at the house installing a link to the Fleet's computers and had offered to ride shotgun.
Yo-Ichi, who was better at English than Hiko, grinned and pointed at the other boy. "Hiko did it," he replied. He started laughing as he ran over to the couch and jumped into Kai's lap.
Hiko had caught on to what was going on a moment too late and found himself being grabbed by the older girl. "Nii-chan, help!"
Urani laughed as the black-haired girl started tickling his brother. "Gomen, Hi-chan ... you'll have to get out of this yourself."
Hikari chuckled as the Hrrrrunai started squirming. "So, how are the lessons going?" she asked, in English.
Urani stopped laughing as he tried to figure out what she had said. "Slowly. Your De- ... mother ... still will not let my powers be used." He glanced behind Hikari and frowned. "Where's Rei?"
"Downstairs with Cyril," Hikari replied. She smiled slightly as she put Hiko down on the couch. "She wanted to see if she could contact Seiya-san."
"I've been trying myself. But ... telepathy doesn't work between ... dimensions."
"At least your accent sounds better. Shi still-" Hikari replied. She switched to Japanese so she would be sure Urani would understand. "Shi-chan still sounds like she's from Neptune."
"But Michiru-san sounds just like the others," Kai replied.
Jinia chuckled slightly. "I think she meant the planet, not the Senshi, Kai-chan."
The gray-haired girl blushed slightly. "Oh."
"That reminds me ... did Umino-san tell you guys anything ... about me?"
Jinia frowned slightly, glancing at Urani. "No. What would Umino-san have to tell us about you?"
Urani sighed. He wasn't sure he was ready for everyone to know this, but since the women around him now were the closest family at the moment ... He only hoped they didn't react badly. "Umino-san said that I ... I am a Senshi."
Hikari grinned slightly. "Cool. See, that proves boys can be Senshi."
"Boys can't be Senshi. She must have been mistaken, Urani-chan." Kai frowned slightly, glancing at the blue-eyed boy. "Although ... there isn't a Chibi Fighter. Or a Healer."
"There is too a Healer," Yo-Ichi replied, frowning.
Kai shook her head, glancing down at her brother. "No, there isn't. You can't be a Senshi. Mi-ko isn't Healer and neither am I. That only leaves ..."
Hikari smiled a little. "That only leaves me," she replied, pulling a small gold device from her pocket.
"Hikari ... you're a ..." Jinia watched in amazement as her daughter transformed.
"I'm the next StarHealer."
Having decided that the mansion was far too noisy at the moment, even with Urani gone, Usami had taken the triplets and Rsin to the other house to let them rest. She knew that as soon as Taiki came home, they'd be all over the older Kinmokunai and Mara still hadn't fully recovered. Plus, she had several days of make-up homework to finish. She was in one of the bedrooms, just starting on her English paper when she heard the front door slam. Jumping to her feet, the black-haired Princess ran to the stairs. "What's going on?"
The redhead in the hallway jumped at the older girl's voice. "'S-'Sami, I ... I didn't know you were here."
"Tsuki, is something wrong? Why are you slamming doors like that?"
Tsuki sighed. "No, nothing's wrong, I just ... look, just forget it, okay, I'll ... I'll go, so you can-"
Usami teleported to the bottom of the stairs and grabbed her sister's arm before she could leave. "Tsuki, wait. Something is obviously bothering you." She pulled the other girl into the living room and made her sit on the couch. "You can talk to me, you know?"
"Only when they're not around."
"That's not true. Tsuki, you're my sister. You can talk to me anytime you want." Usami smiled slightly. "And if you don't talk to me, I'll just have to get it out of you in your dreams."
The redhead sighed, staring down at her hands. "Usami, I ... I did something bad."
Usami frowned, sitting beside her sister. "Tsu, what could you have possibly done?"
"I betrayed Dema."
"What? How did you betray her?"
The redhead felt tears falling down her face, but didn't bother to wipe them off. "K-Kara ... I-I've been in contact with him for ... for several months, t-telling him what Earth was like."
"That isn't a betrayal. He is our ... father."
Tsuki shook her head. "He wanted t-to know ... everything ... who we had been in contact with ... who knew we were aliens ... who knew we were Senshi ... who knew about the others ... what they could do ... what their weaknesses were ... their real n-names ... and their children."
Usami stood, walking over to the window and looking out toward the Alvarson mansion. "What did you tell him, Tsuki?"
"I ..."
"Tsuki Akane ... what did you tell him?"
"Only Ch-Chiba-san's name."
Usami spun to face her sister. "Are you sure? Are you sure that's the only thing you told him?" When the redhead nodded, she frowned. "Did you tell him she was a Senshi? or that she was the Sovereign?"
Tsuki shook her head. "I couldn't. What he was asking for just didn't ... didn't sound right. But he ... he used her name to find out that stuff he told people."
The black-haired Princess walked back over to the couch and knelt in front of her sister. "He could have found out her name from a dozen other places. Uncle Seiya has been seen with her. Their picture has been in every paper from here to Tokyo." She smiled slightly as she reached up to wipe the tears from the younger girl's face. "This isn't a betrayal, Tsuki ..."
"He-He said it was."
Usami rolled her eyes. "When will you stop believing every word that comes out of our father's mouth?"
"When I know for sure that he's not my father."
"What?"
Tsuki sighed, wiping her face on her sleeve. "When I wouldn't tell him what he wanted to know, he ... he called me a bastard child."
Frowning, the older girl pulled the redhead into a hug. "You're not a bastard. You're my sister. Just because you look exactly like mom-"
"But I don't look exactly like her. And I don't look like him, either." Tsuki pulled away from the hug as she reached over to grab her book bag. She pulled a folded piece of paper from it and handed it to Usami. "I look like her."
Usami sat beside the other girl as she unfolded the paper. She recognized the background of the picture immediately, it was taken in front of the old palace on Kinmoku. The one that Galaxia destroyed. There were three women in front, one was their grandmother, another she recognized as Seiya's mother, Miyoshi, but the third, another redhead, she didn't know. "Tsuki, I don't ..." As she glanced back up at her sister, she realized that Tsuki did, indeed, look like the woman in the photograph. "Who is she?"
"Sailor StarDestroyer, according to the records I found. But they were corrupted, so I can't be sure. Her real name was Ati Rior. She died in the battle with Galaxia, a few years after that picture was taken. She left behind a daughter, named Kou Rior. She changed it when she became Sailor StarMaker."
"Uncle Taiki?" Usami felt her jaw drop as her sister nodded. "You ... you think that ..."
"I know that Taiki is my Dema."
Kakyuu looked at her youngest daughter with much the same expression her sister had earlier. "T-Taiki is your ... but ... how do you ...?"
"How do I know?" Tsuki smiled sadly and pulled a small knife from her pocket.
Usami gasped and grabbed her sister's hands as the knife blade sliced the palm of her hand open. "Pan!"
"Calm down, Usami, it's okay." Tsuki sighed as both her sister and her mother grabbed her hands.
"Tsuki Akane, what did you think you were doing, you could have-" Kakyuu stared in shock at the red blood covering all three of their hands. After staring at it for a moment, she grabbed a towel and wiped Tsuki's palm to see just how deep the cut was ... only there was no cut. "What the-"
Usami frowned as her mother wiped the blood from her sister's uninjured hand. "That's not funny, Tsu."
"It's not a joke. Here, check the knife yourself. It's sharp." Tsuki handed the knife to her sister, raising an eyebrow when she pricked her finger and started bleeding. "Now do you believe me?"
Panacea came running into the room, one hand on an energy weapon, her medical kit in her other. When she saw the bloody towel in Kakyuu's hands, she ran over to her. "What happened?"
Kakyuu was still staring at Tsuki's hands. "She ... cut herself, but it ..."
Tsuki sighed. "I was trying to show them that I'm not a half-breed. My blood is red, just like Kageshirou's and just like Shi's."
"Shi is a half-breed," Usami replied, holding a towel on her own cut finger. She was glad Tsuki had insisted on making this little revelation in the kitchen, rather than the living room. Blood was hard to remove from shag carpeting. The older princess had reassured her sister that their mother wouldn't get mad when she found out she had been in contact with Meiya, but the younger redhead had insisted on telling her mother her suspicions about her parentage first.
"Which one was Shi, again?" Panacea asked as she walked over to look at Usami's hand. She frowned at the black blood. "What in the world are you girls doing in here?"
"'Sami didn't believe me when I told her the knife was sharp," Tsuki replied. "And Shi is Urani's sister. You haven't met her yet. And I know she's a half-breed, but she does have red blood."
Usami made a face at her sister. "Well, what am I supposed to think when the thing doesn't even cut you?"
"It did cut me, why do you think my blood is all over the floor?"
"Then why wasn't there a mark on your hand?"
"Because you can heal." Kakyuu watched her youngest child for several moments, then smiled. "You can heal ... just like Taiki's mother could. You are Taiki's child."
Tsuki nodded, smiling sadly. "I ... I remember hearing Ka-Meiya talking about it to ... someone, years ago. I thought he was talking about Shirou." She blinked back tears and backed away from her mother when the older woman moved to hug her.
"Tsuki ..."
"I wanted to prove him wrong. I wanted to prove to him that I was his child, that I was still loyal ... but I couldn't. What he asked of me ..." Tsuki grabbed her book bag from the floor and dug out several small crystal storage devices, as well as a folder of printed correspondences. "That's everything ... every conversation I've had with him since we left Kinmoku. I ... I was going to destroy it so no one would know what I did."
Usami frowned at her sister, then glanced at their mother. "What she did was stand up to him and refuse to tell him what he wanted to know. About damn time, if you ask me." She jumped when Panacea wrapped a small bandage a little too tightly around her finger.
Kakyuu smiled a little at the younger redhead. "Tsuki, I know you've been talking to your ... to Meiya. No, I didn't look at what was said, that was between you and him. It still is," she replied. She walked over to her and pulled her into a hug. "If you want to destroy them, destroy them."
Tsuki shook her head slightly. "N-No. Th-there's ... there might be something ... he wasn't always alone when he talked to me. Since the Space Station incident, there's been a ... blonde lady with him. She ... she's pregnant."
Gaea
Cronos glared at the figure standing in front of her. "What do you mean 'we' failed?"
Ryusei flinched at the coldness in her voice. "I-I failed. I could not gain access to the house as long as the woman was inside it. But she never left without the girl. Whenever I tried to get close to them outside of the house, those ... things always showed up. Monsters, just like the ones we destroyed before. I finally managed to get into the house tonight, but ... they were both gone."
"Where?"
"I don't know. They must have used some kind of ... magic to get out."
Cronos turned her glare on the unconscious figures encased in crystal coffins beside her. "They have her ..." She walked over to one of the coffins and brushed her fingers across the surface. "But I still have a few tricks up my sleeve."
Ryusei frowned slightly. "What is our next move?"
The green-haired woman smiled at the younger man. "Don't worry about it. The next move is theirs. Go find your mother for me. I have something I would like her to do." She watched him bow and turn to leave the room. "Oh, and Ryu ... tell her to bring Sakura as well."
"Yes, grandmother."
