Story notes: This story is a sort of alternate universe
continuation (you'll know what I mean a few paragraphs in) but can be
considered to take place after Sailor Stars, although really it
doesn't matter. As long as you at least know the characters to some
degree, if not the canon plots, you won't get lost here. Oh, and it
will be shoujo-ai flavoured too.
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Chapter 0: Separated Times Two!
Lost in a Senshi-less World.
Mizuno Ami watched with resolve as the inevitable finally came,
and the Mercury Computer's batteries gave out at last. For some
reason she had expected the incredible machine's screen to slowly
flicker like a dying candle, but it was almost a relief that it
appeared to happen in a single instant, as if someone had simply
turned it off for the night. Now she was on her own. The last piece
of Sailor Mercury was gone. At least Ami had come to understand a
little of the world she now inhabited.
She hoped the others were doing as well as she was. Thankfully
they could all speak the language there, which seemed to be an
eccentric and old fashioned sort of Japanese, but she thought her
knowledge of history probably gave her a benefit the others might
lack. The almost arbitrary-seeming blend of cultures left even her
uncertain of how to behave at times, but at least it mostly comprised
feudal-esque Japanese and medieval European. Enough that she could
give them all a few pointers on potential etiquette before they had
separated. Some people in this world were still prepared to take
physical steps against someone who had treated them 'inappropriately'.
Splitting up had been Minako's idea at first, but the others must
have seen a degree of sense in it that had passed Ami by. Had they
all stuck together they could at least have helped to cover each
other's mistakes. Now she could do nothing but wait for them to
return with whatever insights and skills they had learned in their
month apart. In the mean time she did what she could in the town they
had first come to, researching and furthering her own understanding
of the place.
While the magic that allowed them their powers as Senshi did not
exist in this world, the place did have its own magic users. Early on
her computer had let her know that while their own magics were
incompatible with this world, it did leave them with a much greater
affinity for the arcane than others here would normally have. By her
own calculations they should each be able to gain some level of power
and skill in the arcane and she had encouraged them to do what they
could to embrace that. Despite their experience of battle only Makoto
and Haruka were really suited to fight in this place, and even they
would be at great risk against the samurai-like armed soldiers they
had seen.
After all, none of them were prepared to lie down and accept this
place. If they were going to find a way home it would mean travelling
for the answers, and coming up against who knew what in the process.
With her computer now useless it was either that or wait to be
rescued by Usagi and the others back home. That was why she had
decided to remain in the town while the others explored, just in case
their princess managed to find her there. After almost two months
however it looked like rescue wasn't coming, not unless they could do
something to help their friends find them.
Ami closed her eyes and shut the lid of her computer, tucking it
into the large travelling bag that sat against the leg of her desk.
After all the answers it had given her over the years she didn't
think it really owed her anything now. She let out a heavy sigh and
flopped onto the old bed, wishing her friends would come back soon.
She had been lonely after the first week, and now even her poor
results at practicing magic were nothing compared to the need for her
friends' company. She found it difficult to connect to the people
there. No, she knew she always had difficulty with people that way,
but more so now that she was an intelligent teenaged girl of the
microchip age in a land of superstitious peasant farmers.
At least being a science prodigy now had some definite benefits
other than good test scores. She knew how to do things that probably
wouldn't be discovered for over two hundred years.
***
Aino Minkao beamed as the warmth from her applauding audience
filled the tavern. 'This is what being a star is about!' she thought
to herself as she curtsied before leaving the stage. When she had
first learned what the publican had wanted her to do she had been
more than a little wary, but being a dancing girl here did not cross
the boundary of what she considered decent. It might have teased a
bit and skirted close to the edges, but it was all in good fun. While
these people might not have had television to keep them cultured they
were a great audience who knew what they liked, and they liked her!
It would almost be a shame to leave, but her apprenticeship was
up and the others would be waiting for her. After all, it was a three
day ride back to the town they had first appeared in.
The reason she had come to the tavern in the first place had been
finally hearing of someone with real magical skill. The short plays
that were put on seemed to be famous for the effects that accompanied
them, and Minako had eagerly applied to study under the man behind
them, in return for whatever acts, dances or songs she could perform.
The man had reluctantly agreed, considering she would be working
every night just for tips rather than a normal performer's share, but
it had turned out that Minako was just as poor at studying magic as
she had been at most other things at school. The combination of
spontaneity, concentration and mental fortitude that her tutor tried
to instil in her just didn't click. Had it just taken one of them he
said she would have been the greatest stage magician ever to have
lived. Managing two together on the other hand was more than a little
difficult with her flighty enthusiasm, and since she had to keep up
the effort for all three at once it was remarkable she could do
anything at all. However, what she could manage by the end was pretty
good considering the way she was, and she had gained more than just a
few magic tricks during her time there.
Her dancing had also been improving and it was one thing she
showed great skill in. When one of the performers thought it might be
fun to teach the young girl something a bit more difficult Minako had
jumped at the chance, even though she had needed to lose over a foot
of her blonde pride and joy to do so. The old southern blade dance
took only sixteen days to learn, and with surprisingly few cuts along
the way, so by the end of her month long magical apprenticeship she
could both perform the dangerous dance flawlessly and hold her own
against her teacher with the pair of short scimitars. What she lacked
in mental skill with magic she seemed to make up in agility in the
acrobatic close combat.
Oh, she knew the tan-skinned woman had been holding back when
they had fought as part of the dance training, but she had learned
far more about fighting than she had ever expected to. Had it just
been fighting lessons she probably would have flunked, but as a dance
she could understand what she was being taught. How to cover herself
and defend against both accidents during the dance and real attacks
would be a great benefit if what Ami and Haruka had said turned out
to be true.
She hoped that by now someone had found them, or that Ami had
worked out a way to get back, and all this wouldn't be needed much -
outside getting her that showbiz job of course - but if not then at
least she had learned enough to be useful. And she knew how these
people thought now. Yep, she wasn't leader of the inner senshi for
nothing!
***
In some ways Kino Makoto felt very relieved to be leaving the
forest that had been her home for the last three and a half weeks,
but she knew that whatever happened when she got back to Ami it would
be a time of her life that she would never forget.
If she were honest with herself she knew that she had wanted to
stay behind with her studious friend while the others ventured off.
They were always the more sociable ones, unlike Ami and herself. It
was a small piece of common ground that Makoto thought she must have
needed, because without it she seemed to be nothing but trouble:
always after the wrong guy or working herself up about something. Ami
knew how to deal with being that kind of private, obsessive person,
and some of it seemed to rub off when they were around each other.
Still, she had left just like the others, with no idea where she
was supposed to go. She might had wandered from place to place for
weeks if the nomad caravan hadn't offered her a lift, and in the end
she had stayed with them as they headed to the glade that was their
seasonal home. Even by this world's standards they were strange
people: uninhibited, self-contained and deeply superstitious. But,
for all their gaudy clothing and their inclination not to wear much
of it, she found them an easy group to be around. There was something
she trusted in their open honesty and conviction in their ways and
beliefs.
Makoto soon admitted she knew little of the place, though not
explaining just how far removed she was from her home, and they were
all too happy to help her for no other reason than the fact that they
could. She did her share of the daily work and they treated her like
family for it. Her physical prowess impressed them, and in exchange
for the muddled combination of karate, judo and plain street-brawling
Makoto used they agreed to teach her their own magics, known only to
their own people if they were to be believed. The only condition was
that she shouldn't use it to disturb the 'natural order' their lives
revolved around. The way Makoto came to understand it was 'not biting
the hand that fed you'.
In the end she was the lucky one when it came to magic. Her own
affinity with lightning that had come as Sailor Jupiter meant that
the nomadic power felt familiar when she finally managed to get it
right. It worried her teachers that her ability was so heavily biased
towards that element, but she had assured them that it made perfect
sense, and the fact that she made steady progress helped confirm that
trust. Had she been abusing the power that she had connected to it
would have protected itself by limiting her access, or even lashing
out.
The thing that felt strange for her was to have fighting and
self-control becoming such large parts of her life again. She had
grown to like all the feminine things she had forced herself to learn
in the vain hope of impressing her old sempai, and since finding the
friends she now had her need to stand up and to prove herself had
slowly subsided. Now it seemed that had to become important again,
not for herself, but to protect the others. She didn't try to dwell
on her morbid thoughts, but if they did have to find their own way
home then it would be her responsibility to keep them safe. It didn't
prey on her mind in the way it once had though. Her nomadic surrogate
family had given her another way to protect them.
As she shouldered her bag and said her goodbyes she wondered if
she could re-create some of these people's food for Ami and the
others, the way they had adopted some of her own culinary touches. Or
whether she would start forgetting to get dressed properly once she
was back with people who cared about stuff like that!
***
Hino Rei couldn't help but wonder what had led her to such a fate
as she trudged through the rain back to their meeting point. She was
cut off from the princess she had to protect, lost in a world that
was all too ancient for her liking, and in more than a little
spiritual turmoil after the last month. What would her grandfather
have said to her if he had been there to see what she had done?
She should have been one of the better prepared for the world she
and her friends now found themselves in. Thanks to one of her
favourite spells as a senshi, learning the finer use of a bow to
protect herself had been easy. She had already spent the last of the
money they had traded their jewellery for in buying an archer's
harness for herself so that her bust would not get in the way. The
bow she had taken from the terrified highwayman she had left by the
side of the road on her way to the Great Northern Library.
Her large collection of fantasy manga and doujinshi should also
have given her a good idea of how a world like this one might have
worked, but the distinct lack of elves, orcs, heroes and princesses
there made it a great deal harder to think of the place as anything
but the kind of mangled history homework Usagi might have turned in.
Although it had been a long and tiring hitch-hike to the Great
Northern Library it had been a journey she had been given no choice
but to make. She had not sought out a short apprenticeship or a tutor
when it came to magic, but trusted in the teachings of her shrine to
give her some answers. She had created her own fire and meditated for
hours, but her sight was patchy at best, even though her innate
intuition seemed to be heightened in this world. Then in a great
explosion all hell had broken loose. She had found the power of her
fire, but it was a far cry from the shinto traditions she had weaved
into her senshi magic.
She had spent weeks studying in desperation within the huge halls
of the library, trying to understand and control the power she had
unleashed. She learned a great deal in that time, but in the end it
had been the singular release of that power that had defined what it
would be and how it would work for her. All she could do now was
learn control. She knew in her heart it wasn't a force of evil, no
matter how despised it was. She just had to make sure none of the
'natives' found out.
But thanks to that, she had also be able to look up the things
she felt Ami might have advised her to, studying ladies' etiquette,
decorum and the various social classes of the country. Some of the
others might not be prepared to go along with those traditions, but
as long as one or two of them could appear to fit in they would all
have an easier time around these people.
She staggered a bit as her foot fell into a pothole in the dirt
road, and an amused little laugh appeared out of nowhere and floated
through her head. Rei shook her head and sighed. This whole thing was
just typical of her luck.
***
Tenoh Haruka stared at the front door as she stood in the clear
moonlight, her knuckles raised from beneath her cloak but not
knocking, just resting on the poorly kept wood. Was she ready to see
the younger girls again? She honestly couldn't tell. After everything
that had happened between them, most of it less than pleasant, she
felt uneasy going back to them like this.
She was the only one of the outer senshi that had been cast into
this alternate world, and as that had happened she had lost half of
herself as well. Perhaps the better half. Haruka had always been
strong, but that strength belied the inner turmoil that had dogged
her life ever since she had chosen not to hide who and what she truly
was. Michiru had been the force that had allowed her to fully accept
her own lifestyle, and since realising what they meant to each other
they had been inseparable. Now, after two months without her and
their little Hotaru, she realised how self-contained their world as a
family was. Without them, what did she have left? Racing? She would
have to learn to ride a horse properly if she was ever going to feel
the thrill of speed while she was here.
Her separation from the others stemmed from more than those
superfluous aspects of her life. The inner senshi had long since
accepted Michiru and herself as an item, but socially they had always
been apart from them. A few years really did make all the difference,
and both their maturity and the image that surrounded them because of
that had done nothing to stop it feeling like 'them and us'.
Especially when she had looked down on them as immature so often.
Then from that had come the inners' high hopes and ideals that the
real world and real battles had somehow not managed to wring out of
them. As one of the outer senshi it was her duty to do everything
necessary to safeguard their future. Everything necessary had not
always been pleasant, but she had known it had to be done.
But now that outlook had been fractured. In betraying their own
she and Michiru had felt certain they could end their last battle,
and then they had watched as all their sacrifices came to nothing.
The others had forgiven them, but that left even more of an
uncomfortable distance between them. Could she really trust her own
judgement after being proved so fallible? Could the others really let
it rest so easily? Even just coming together as friends left her
feeling that both sides were trying hard not to notice the eggshells
they walked on. But Haruka noticed. It was far too familiar from her
time before Michiru and the senshi, and far too unpleasant. As a pair
they had always been there to reassure each other of the rightness of
their actions. Now she only had the younger girls to follow, and to
fight with, and she would have to deal with their objections to her
methods as well as with her own aversion towards their impossible
ideals.
But fight with them she would, and that was something she was
very good at. Come to think of it, it was strange that she had not
followed through from her experience with a sword. Her space sword
was lost to her now, but it had been one of her greatest weapons as a
Senshi. Now, under the tutelage of the cabal she had affiliated
herself with, the staff had become a weapon she could both wield with
some degree of skill and which would aid her far better than the cold
iron of a scimitar or katana. Such weapons were not conductive to the
'Art', and the 'Art' was a far more powerful tool to wield,
especially useful when channelled through the ritually prepared wood.
Unlike other magics the 'Art' required touch to do anything at all,
but at the end of her eight foot staff she could remain out of the
reach of most weapons and still use the power she had unlocked.
That 'Art' had come with a price, but - unlike the others - she
knew that that was the case with all things in life, whether you
realised it or not. Now that price could be her penance for her
betrayal of her friends and princess. She was sure the younger girls
would object, and that drew out her hesitation, but she would fulfil
her duty to them regardless. With Michiru and Hotaru gone, that would
be what sustained her. And it would lead her back to them.
It had to.
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