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London, December 2011
"But I think the purple hair looks cute on you," Tanetomi replied, grinning slightly. "Besides, it gives us a way to tell you and Kai apart now that you two look more like twins than the twins do."
Mi-ko made a face at the blue-haired girl and brushed a strand of her temporarily purple hair over her shoulder. Ever since she had returned from Gaea, she had deliberately worn her hair loose so that it would hide her face. Between Hotaru's powers, Naru's magic and the Kinmokunai medical technology, there were no traces left of the scars on her face, but she could still feel where every mark had been. "Just wait until the day Shi turns your hair pink."
"Mi-ko! Don't tell her what I'm planning to do!" Shi grinned as she hooked her arm with the purple-haired girl's. "Come on, Kino-san asked me to get her some local food for dinner."
Miyo watched her twin walk off with the other girl and smiled slightly. Usami gently poked her arm. "What happened between you two on Gaea?"
"Nothing. Shi-chan and I ... were together, most of the time. But ... on Gaea ... Mi-ko wasn't with us. Shi-chan is scared of losing her again. I think ..." Miyo glanced at the redhead. After a moment, she smiled and hooked her arm with hers. "Being away from everyone for so long ... scared both of us."
"Well, you're back with us now. And there's no reason to get sentimental, Mi-chan." Tanetomi winked at the brunette as she followed the blonde. "Save it for the wedding."
"If it ever takes place," Tsuki replied. She smiled a little at the older girls. While the twins were gone, she had grown closer to the others, especially her two sisters, but was still trying to get used to being friends with the twins.
"It will take place. Even if we have to shanghai them and drive them to Notre Dame," Kai replied.
Miyo chuckled slightly. "Notre Dame is in Paris, Kai. We're in London."
"Exactly. Paris, the 'City of Lights', the 'City of Love'. They can Honeymoon there, while everyone else is here," Kai replied, grinning.
Usami laughed as she batted at the other girl's gray pony-tail. "And here I thought I was supposed to be planning the wedding." Two coughs from her sister's had a slight blush crossing her cheeks. "We. We're supposed to be planning the wedding."
Hikari grinned at her sister. "Kai-chan is still upset over mom and dad wanting a 'private' wedding." She had only agreed to come with them at her sisters' insistence. "She can't wait until dad gets back, so she can convince him to have a more ... formal wedding."
"Which your mother will flat out refuse to have," Usami replied. "Do you know how difficult it was talking MY mother into a formal wedding? The first one was ... barely a wedding at all. And definitely to the wrong person. That's why I ... we ... want to make this one into one they will never forget."
Mara chuckled slightly. "I don't think they will ever forget it, no matter what kind of wedding it is, 'nee-chan." She squeaked when the redhead let go of Miyo and easily picked her up. Even though they had been following the doctor's diet plans, neither Mara nor her brothers had grown much since the day she got hurt. A fact that only seemed to bother Tai, who hated being small.
Tsuki smiled at her sister, then chuckled. "You know, I just realized something ... I'm related to the 'terrible trio'."
"You just now realized that?" Tanetomi grinned when the younger girl blushed. "Not only are you related to them, but you're also related to Rsin."
"I realized Rsin, but ... not the Vigns."
Mara smiled a little at the older girl. "It's because we have a different name. 'Dema doesn't want us to change it. He's afraid we'll forget them." Her smile turned sad as she put her head on Usami's shoulder. "I don't even remember them."
Usami hugged the younger girl. "Then maybe it's time we talk to them about letting you take Taiki's name. That way we'll all be one big family."
"But Usami-nee-chan ... we can't take Taiki's name."
"That's where you're wrong, Little Princess." Miyo winked at Tsuki. "If we were still on Kinmoku, you would still have your mother's name, Dai, but on Earth, it is the father's name, usually. Especially since you have the powers of his mother."
"But if you went by powers, my name would be Rior, not Taiki or Dai. And if you did that, you'd have to have a name like Masato-san's."
"Who?"
"Nephrite. He took the name of his former self in this world." Hikari frowned slightly. "Actually, I guess it would be ... your former name."
Miyo nodded slightly. "Ah, that Masato. I had forgotten he even existed. But ... how can he pull it off? Masato was ... older than Nephrite. At least, in appearance."
"The miracles of having friends in high places," Tanetomi replied. "And the convenient lie that he is, in fact ... not the original Masato."
Hikari fought back the grin that threatened to spread at the look on the other girl's face. "I think ... congratulations are in order, Sanjouin-san. You're a ... parent."
Miyo stood there for several moments, staring at her cousin in shock as her other self processed the information that his fake identity had become a parent while she wasn't there. After several moments, she started laughing. "I'm afraid to ask, but ... who was the mother?"
"Unknown. Poor little Masa-chan was given up for adoption when he was born and only learned of his true parentage after an accident in Middle School. His mother listed his father's name, but not her own on the birth certificate," Hikari replied, grinning. "If you think his back story is funny, wait until you hear the others."
"They all have back stories now?"
Usami nodded. "Of course. You think people aren't going to get suspicious of newcomers just suddenly showing up?" She winked at the other girl. "I think we did pretty good on their histories, personally."
"So who is who? And when do I get to meet my long lost son?"
"Kunzite was the easiest to create a history for. Michiru-obaa-chan helped us find a cousin of Haruka-obaa-chan's that had gone missing when she was a child. Tenou Fuyumi. She was never found, but Chiba-san is certain that she is dead. The Tenous know that she isn't really Fuyumi, but as far as the world's concerned, she is.
"Jadeite was a little harder to place, but after Naru-san did some digging, she found out he was related, somehow, to Makoto-obaa-chan-"
"He's related to Jupiter?" Miyo asked, frowning.
Hikari glanced around the street, making sure no one but family was around. "Yes. She said that they must have a similar ancestry. Anyway, once she figured that out, they created a past for him as Mako-obaa-chan's cousin."
"You're making them sound very boring, Kari-chan," Mara replied. "Raiden-chan was abducted by space aliens and Fuyu-chan was kidnapped by circus clowns."
"Sounds way too close to the Senshi's adventures, personally," Miyo replied. "So, who was taken by the evil wizard?"
Mara smirked. "Taji-chan. He was turned into a newt."
"But it got better," Tanetomi replied.
"Which one is Taji? And who's Raiden?"
Hikari rolled her eyes at the younger girl. "Raiden is Jade. Kino Raiden. And he wasn't abducted by aliens, that was Shi-chan and the others. Raiden-chan was sold to pirates as a baby."
"Oh yeah, that's right! I forgot that one!"
"Seriously, his backstory says that he was living in Hong Kong and started looking for his cousin after all the bad publicity over the kids.
"And then, there's Zoisite ... Taji. He was the most difficult to find a name for. Naru-san said he was related to Chiba-san, but her parents were only children. But, he was also related to Suuri-san, so ... a little judicious reworking of history ... and Ami-obaa-chan has a half-brother that she just met. Mizuno Taji."
"Wow. More family. So they decided to stay on Earth, after all, huh?"
"Argent-san wouldn't let them leave. She said that since Earth wasn't harming them the way Gaea had, there was no reason for them to leave," Usami replied. As they had been talking, the girls had been walking through the store, idly following the path Shi and Mi-ko had taken. Now as the dark-haired girl looked around, she realized she had no idea where they were. "Um ... what are we doing in furniture?"
Later that evening
After spending most of the afternoon shopping and forgetting about the tensions back in California, the teenagers returned back to the estate to find Argent and her daughters in the front room.
"What's going on?" Usami asked as she helped Mara put her bags on the couch.
Kakyuu's smile was shaky. "Argent-san ... Argent-san was ... trying again."
The teenagers took the redhead's words to mean that the gray-haired lady had had no luck. "I'm going upstairs," Shi replied, ignoring everyone in the room.
Miyo started after her, then paused at the base of the stairs. "I think I'm going to ... go work on ... something," she replied, walking toward the back of the house.
"Hold on, I'll join you," Hikari replied. She glanced at her sisters for a moment, then followed the brunette. She followed her to a small room at the back of the house that Katrina had told them had once been the maid's quarters. It had since been converted into a small workshop and the brunette was taking advantage of it to work on one of the notorious communicators. "Mi-chan?"
"I can't ... I can't be around them. Every thing they feel, every thing they think ... I ..."
"Gomen. We forget sometimes that you can't ... turn it off, like Urani and Hiko. Do you want me to-"
"No. Stay. Please. I ... don't like being alone."
"But you and Shi-"
"The dreams. Being apart ... makes the dreams easier to bear." Miyo glanced up from the communicator and smiled a little at the other girl. "Being in the Dark Kingdom again ... brought more memories to the front of our minds and forced us to ... deal with them. Nephrite and Zoisite ... they couldn't help us, even though they tried. Our pasts, our ... lives, were just too different."
Hikari took the communicator from her and glanced down at the exposed circuits. She picked up a small piece from the work table and tried to figure out where it went. "Maybe ... you have to get your other selves to help you. It's their lives, after all, that are causing you problems now." She finally got the piece into place and replaced the communicator on the bench. The 'ghosts' had finally been traced to faulty circuits on one of the main boards. It was cheaper to replace them all, but difficult since they had to be done by hand and couldn't be done in space. The girls had been taking turns repairing the ones from the Av'Nai since it was still the closest ship to Earth.
The green-eyed girl was about to pick up another communicator when one of the ones that had yet to be fixed began beeping. "Another ghost?" she asked, glancing at her companion.
"Probably. But we have to check anyway."
Hikari nodded and began digging through the communicators until she found the one making the noise. She was about to dismiss it as a ghost signal when a familiar voice came through the speaker.
"I don't recognize this source code."
"Aunt Haru?"
"Hikari?"
The green-eyed girl nearly dropped the communicator. "Dema?! How- Where are you?"
"Still on Gaea. Where are you?"
"London. Miyo-chan and I were working on some of the communicators when this one just started beeping. How is this-"
"Woah, did she just say Miyo-chan?"
"Zavi, please tell me you guys are recording as much data from this as you can."
"Don't worry, we are."
"Uncle Seiya?"
Miyo almost tripped over her own feet in her hurry to cross the two feet between her and the other girl. "Dema?"
"Miyo, whatever you do, keep that communicator working."
