Fic: On Razor's Edge - Chapter 11
Title: On Razor’s Edge - Chapter 11
Summary: Crystal Tokyo has arrived. So has Ando Tanaka.
Warnings: Oh, lots and lots of swearing. But other than that, tame.
A/N: As always, mountains of thanks to the wonderful charliechaplin2, who gently reminds me that this tale is to be continued. In that sense, consider this the tick tick tick before the boom.
The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard.
~ verse in the Katha-Upanishad
***
The Crystal Palace had many towers, but one was special because not only did the armed guards never go there, for some reason they never even really thought about it. It was a white spot on the map, an unheard whisper at the edge of their minds.
And it was in this tower, or on it’s roof top terrace, to be precise, that a very secret meeting took place in the dead of the night while the winter wind raced around the spires.
“Man, it’s cold,” Hiro muttered, pulling the thick green scarf his wife had made for him over his mouth and nose. Beside him, Rei shivered in her elegant coat, clearly wishing for warmer apparel. Only Michiru seemed unfazed, but then she was (much to Hiro’s dismay) wearing a heavy fur coat, a matching hat, and fur-lined leather gloves.
“Really?” the violinist asked, sounding bored. “I’m fine.”
“Seeing how you are wearing half a polar bear, I’d be surprised if you weren’t,” Hiro replied. “Pity for the poor animal.”
Michiru smiled dryly. “It’s dyed chinchilla, Hiromasa. Polar bears are nearly extinct, which makes wearing them a little... inappropriate.”
“Chinchillas?” Hiro asked, scandalised, disbelief playing out on his big features. “They’re oversized hamsters. You’re wearing what my daughter’s school friends keep in little cages and feed carrot sticks.”
Before Michiru could answer, Rei cut in. “It’s midnight, we need to start.” She couldn’t stand Hiromasa’s and Michiru’s bickering at the best of times, but in the middle of the night up on an icy tower, it was intolerable.
Michiru sighed, a dramatic little sound. “It’s a fruitless endeavour, but fine. Let’s start.” Peeling her white gloves off, and putting them into a pocket of her coat, she offered one hand to Hiro and one to Rei.
Rei reached for her, and extended her right to Hiro. Looking decidedly unhappy, the big man took the hands that were offered to him and closed his eyes. All at once, the whisper of the stars, always a background noise when he was anywhere near the palace and the Silver crystal it contained, exploded in his ears.
“It’s working,” he groaned, and let go of Michiru’s hand. With the circle broken, the volume of the voices died down instantly. “I could hear them all.”
“Good,” Michiru said ruthlessly, and took his hand again. “Now find out what they’re saying.”
***
“How’s Rei?” Minako asked when Ando shuffled into the kitchen the next morning.
“Still sleeping. She’s completely knackered.” He yawned. “More pressing question: why do you look like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman? Before she met the Richard Gere character and stopped prostituting herself, that is.”
Minako laughed and looked down at herself. True, the tiny blue skirt, the belly bearing cropped white shirt and the thigh high boots were a dead ringer for the film’s trademark look. “Good party, long night.”
“Any new intel?” Ando asked and stole Mina’s coffee.
“I was just going to ask you the same thing.”
“You first.”
Mina nodded and took the coffee from his hands again. “My sources say that there’s a group assembling in irregular intervals at different places. No information on who’s in it, who’s behind it, but they are very anti-royalty. And the fact that they play so coy makes me think that they’re the ones who were behind the shooting last year and the planned attack on Mamoru. No idea where they will meet next, but I know that they used locations that were destroyed by crystal before. The old Museum of Modern Art, the Mugen Gauken school, even Rei’s temple.” She leaned back in the chair and began to pull her hair into a ponytail before realising she didn’t have a scrunchie or hairpin about her person. Sighing, she let it all drop again. “I’ll get surveillance in place, come up with a roster.”
“You need to get it cut,” Ando said, ignoring her statement and the niggling fear it sent racing down his spine. The last thing he wanted was for Rei to transform into haughty Sailor Mars and to spend long, cold nights watching potentially dangerous places for potentially dangerous people. Stepping behind Minako, he ruffled her hair. “Shouldn’t you have gotten a tragic break-up haircut after you and Icy Electrics called it quits?”
Smiling up at him, she shook her head. “Good God, no. Now, what did Rei, Michiru and Hiro uncover?”
“That joining their powers works. Hiro said that he could hear lots more, but there was nothing specific about upcoming attacks that we didn’t know yet. Fire, volcanos, negotiations with Wiseman, Wiseman, more Wiseman, but no specific Wiseman. Do you think he’s behind this mysterious new organisation?”
“You asked me that fifteen times before.”
“You keeping count, kiddo?”
Her face was serious. “Always.”
“So?” Ando almost wished that their new enemy was one he knew from a previous life. If they had to go against Beryl again, then at least he knew what they’d be up against. Instead, he, much like his brothers, had never met Wiseman and only knew about him as a cautionary tale of an impersonal but dangerous villain. He was going in blind, and fuck, he hated that. By the looks of it, so did Minako, who sighed. “Yes. And it scares the living daylight out of me. Because this isn’t what we thought would happen in the future.”
Trying on his old bravado as if it were a new suit, Ando squared his shoulders. “Revolution and doom version 1.0, revolution and doom version 2.0; don’t really see the difference. We’ll figure it out somehow. It’s what we have three seers for, isn’t it?”
Minako tilted her head to the side, going all quiet. Her blue eyes were knowing.
“What?” Ando asked, his voice almost steady.
“You’re as scared as I am.”
“Fuck that.”
“You are.”
And because they were all alone in the kitchen and because Minako would never tell anyone, and really, who’d believe her, dressed like that, he dropped his shoulders and admitted the truth.
***
Far from the fearful conversation in the kitchen, a little part of the palace was still peaceful. Under downy blankets, head snuggled into fluffy pillows, the Queen of Tokyo was slowly waking up, stretching her legs as she did so.
Yawning, Usagi rolled to her side. She loved those winter mornings. It was stupidly early, Mamoru had left hours ago and the last time she checked (which was a blissful eight and a half hours ago), it had been snowing like crazy outside. No reason to get up at all.
In her sleep-addled mind, the Queen of Tokyo didn’t question that she wasn’t alone in her bed. There were two people there, one snoring loudly, the other breathing quietly. The smell of Old Spice had let her know that the snorer to her right was Hiro, while the hint of jasmin flowers in the air identified her other surprise guest as Rei. Only Michiru had left the palace, leaving the other two seers in the care of the Queen.
Smiling, and sinking back to sleep, Usagi snuggled closer to Rei and pressed her eternally cold feet against Hiro’s socked ones. The world could wait a little while.
***
“My husband is sleeping in my friend’s bed,” Makoto confided with a laugh while adjusting the dials on the babyphone. Yoshi had the measles at the moment and had spent most of the night crying. It was a small blessing that he was taking a late morning nap now, otherwise the poor dear would be cranky all day.
Takeshi smiled. “Usagi?”
“Who else?”
“That’s alright then.” He took a sip of the tea Makoto had made for him. Visiting Makoto, whether it was at the café or here in her home, was always a treat for him. “This is good, thank you.”
“You’re welcome. How was the Emperor’s Ball?”
Takeshi frowned. “Haven’t we spoken since?”
“No. Which is a shame,” Makoto went on, “because I hear a lot happened at that ball.”
“It did indeed. Mamoru and Usagi charmed everyone, press included. Their ascension will be smooth.”
“That’s not what I meant. I hear you and Setsuna danced. In public.”
“Of course. She is an excellent dancer.”
“As are you.”
“You seem surprised.”
“A little. I’ve known you for years, but I just didn’t think you were the dancing type. You didn’t dance at my wedding”
“Dancing is an art form that requires the right partner,” Takeshi said, smiling into his tea.
“And Setsuna is the right one? The one?” Makoto prodded, knowing that barring Mamoru, she was the only one who could ask Takeshi about matters as delicate and private as this. It was a shame, but Takeshi had withdrawn from Umino, perhaps feeling that his close friendship to Ando (and thus invariably Minako) made him an unsuitable confidante. And while Hiro and Takeshi were like brothers, the strength of their connection wasn’t exactly its verbosity. That left her and Mamoru, but Mamoru was ridiculously polite and reticent and would never pester Takeshi so much that he’d talk about things he hadn’t fully considered yet.
To no-one’s surprise, Takeshi’s answer was slow in coming and carefully phrased.
“I care deeply for her.”
“Does she make you happy?” Makoto asked, banishing all thoughts of Minako from her mind.
“Very,” Takeshi confided.
“Good.” Makoto said.
Takeshi put his tea down. “Provided nothing changes, we will get married next year.”
“I... Takeshi, isn’t that a bit soon?”
“It’s months away. But we have discussed it and agreed that it’s the next logical step.”
Makoto smiled, but it did not quite reach her eyes. She didn’t want to think how Minako would take the engagement. In the year since the break-up, her friend had never, not once, expressed anger at Takeshi for beginning a relationship with a fellow senshi. She had remained cool and polite, insisting that her relationship with Takeshi had been doomed from their very first encounter. The only indication that Minako was not quite as fine with the development as she made it sound was that she had steadfastly shied away from any new romance herself. Which was not to say that Minako was lonely. Pretty woman that she was, she could spend each night with a new lover, and had done just that for a while, making Makoto hugely uncomfortable. She wanted to see her friend settled and happy, not chasing the next little adventure only to forget about it the second her feet touched the ground the morning after.
“When the time comes, I would like for Minako to be fine with it,” Takeshi said, echoing Makoto’s thoughts. There was a question in his green eyes, one that Makoto did not know how to answer.
“Oh Takeshi,” she murmured, offering him a cookie, “I’d like that too.”
***
Time passed slowly this winter, hiding any and all signs of spring. The mansion in the outskirts of Tokyo had lost its snowy cover, but no flowers bloomed and March advanced as icily as if it were December.
Even inside, little warmth was to be found, as three old friends once again discussed a sore point.
“I hate that you never tells us anything,” Haruka raged, pacing back and forth in the living-room while Michiru and Setsuna sat on the couch. It was a testament to the hour and the occasion that both women had resorted to hard drinks: iced imported vodka from Sweden for Setsuna, and the driest of all gin and tonics for Michiru.
“Love, sit down,” Michiru said, sounding weary. Only very expensive and expertly applied make-up kept her from looking as tired as she felt.
“Michiru, it would be so much easier if Setsuna would go forth and, and---”
“Have a look?” the senshi of time supplied, arching a brow.
“Yes!”
Michiru put her glass down on the crystal coaster. “You are being silly, Haruka. It doesn’t work like that.”
“I get why she can’t tell the others, they’re no more than babies, the men especially, but we are warriors. One piece of definitive intelligence and we can go in and eradicate the problem.”
“If I go and ‘have a look’, events will change. The ‘look’ will be worthless,” Setsuna explained. To think she had given up on an evening with Takeshi for this...Suppressing a frown, she went on. “We can only go by the information Rei, Michiru and Hiro gleam and on the intelligence Minako gathers from her spy network. We know where the group has met, and Ami and Umino are mapping the city to locate the probable future meeting points.”
“It’s not enough,” Haruka exclaimed, raising her voice. “Don’t tell me you can’t feel it. It’s in the air, all around us. We are moving towards something, getting closer every day. And we are helpless!”
Massaging her temples, Michiru groaned. “Keep your voice down, Haruka.”
Haruka came to a stop, towering over Michiru. “Night after night, you are up on this roof, and nothing comes of it. For months now, Michiru, months! You see visions of Crystal Tokyo’s apocalypse, the same ones the Deep Aqua Mirror already showed you, Hiromasa hears voices warning him about a fire and about Wiseman, how wonderfully helpful, and Rei hasn’t seen or heard anything worthwhile. It’s. Not. Working.” Bursting with frustration, Haruka looked for something to throw against the wall. Without batting a lash, Michiru drained her drink and offered Haruka the glass. “But mind the paintings,” she warned. The last time they had this conversation, Haruka had become so enraged that she had tossed one of Michiru’s prized antique Greek statuettes against the Monet, destroying both.
“It is all we have,” Setsuna reiterated, ignoring the lovers’ spat. “We are keeping a close watch on Usagi and Mamoru, limiting the time they spent outside the palace, monitoring any and all anti-crystal movement in the media and trying to counter it with good PR, but at the end of the day, there is nothing we can do. We either find Wiseman and his attackers, or we wait until they find their way to us. I don’t like it anymore than you do.”
“You sound like your boyfriend,” Haruka bit out, turning away from Michiru.
Setsuna took a sip from her drink, ice cubes clinking in the heavy glass. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You can take that as whatever the---”
“Language, Haruka,” Michiru interrupted.
Haruka groaned and slapped her hand against her forehead in a gesture of sheer frustration.
“And that, my love,” Michiru said sweetly, “is exactly how I feel too.”
***
Sitting cross-legged on the floor of the empty throne room in the earliest hours of the morning, Umino was thinking. He was thinking hard, he’d been thinking long, and much like the three outer senshi, he wasn’t getting anywhere.
He’d started weeks ago by compiling the information on the future attacks in a chart. Unless Wiseman and his group found a pyromancer somewhere, they would need tanks and military firearms to wreak the havoc Michiru had seen in her mirror over two years ago. No firearms or tanks had been stolen in recent years, as a quick and ever so slightly illegal dig in the military communications intranet had shown. That gave them some time.
Next, he’d attempted to construct a timeline for Crystal Tokyo as it would have been had the shitennou not appeared. But precise information was hard to come by. Usagi and Mamoru knew little more than that at some point in the middle of their otherwise peaceful establishment of the monarchy, the Black Moon clan attacked, Chibi-Usa stole the Silver Crystal, travelled to the past and they fixed things from there. They couldn’t even date their daughter’s conception and birth any closer than a few decades.
Of course, the girl would have been the ideal person to ask, but Chibi-Usa had not been seen since the shitennou had returned. They had no way of mapping how far off track the future had gone and what they could do to fix it. Frustrating them further, Ami’s crystal research had run into a dead end as well. His wife had not taken this intellectual defeat well: she spent as much time in the hospital as possible, trying to make up for what she perceived as her great failure. Consoling her had been impossible, so Umino too focused on his work, but the only useful thing he had come up with in the last three days was an accelerated training schedule. Twice a week, senshi and shitennou were secretly working on their powers. Only Rei, Michiru and Hiro were excused because of their nightly trips to the roof. He’d synchronised the training schedule with Minako’s surveillance roster, but really, that was all he could do. The palace’s protection was fully optimised as long as Umino was within its walls for at least three hours a day to do what he called ‘maintenance’ and Ando called ‘walking around, touching walls and looking like an idiot’. Umino chuckled at the thought.
“I call it walking around like an idiot because you are walking around, looking like an idiot,” Ando said, bending over Umino’s shoulder to put a plate with a soggy sandwich on the floor in front of him. “And FYI: we have rooms with actual chairs and desks. You don’t have to sit on the floor.”
“When did you come in?” Umino asked, blinking.
“About five minutes ago, Deep Thought. Speaking of which: interesting thought process. I agree, getting Chibi-Usa as an informant would be great, but we can’t. Unless we get Setsuna to travel to a point in the past where Chibi-Usa from the future is currently at. And we both know she won’t do it, not for something as mundane as gathering information.”
“She’s right,” Umino answered, and reached for the sandwich, realising he hadn’t eaten all day. He pulled the bread apart to check what Ando put inside and was pleased to find mustard, cheddar, lettuce and pastrami.
“She’s a crusty---”
“Ando,” Umino said warningly, the stern tone somewhat softened by his rapturous look as he bit into the sandwich.
“Bitch,” Ando finished as Umino swallowed, and sat down next to his friend. “She’s a bitch. Don’t tell me she’s not. Because she fucking is.”
Umino scowled.
“Oh, let me count the ways,” Ando said. “For one,” he began, counting along his fingers, “she pulled that stunt with me all those years ago, teleporting me to the battle zone of the Moon. Two, and that counts infinitely more, she’s been absolutely useless and refuses to let us go to the future to have a peek. Three, she’s stuck up. Makes her the perfect match for our dear Minister, but personally, there’s not enough fine wine in the whole world to make this woman palatable.”
Biting off more and chewing it with vigour, Umino shrugged. “That is a very long, convoluted and rude way of saying that you are scared of the future and resent her for hurting Minako,” he said when he had polished off the whole sandwich in under a minute.
“Minako is not hurt,” Ando insisted on auto-pilot, the denial more lip service than anything else, and pulled a chocolate bar from the breast pocket of his jumper, offering it to Umino in an offhand way. “She’s fine. Fun and exciting life, that girl has, much better than anything Icy Electrics could have ever offered her.”
“She may not hurt, but she was hurting. There is a difference there,” Umino replied and greedily reached for the chocolate. He really was starving.
“This is not an intellectual exercise, Umino,” Ando scolded his friend and procured an apple out of thin air, putting it right smack on the top of Umino’s head.
“I just don’t think that Minako will get over Takeshi by sleeping with... well, whoever she sleeps with.”
“Leave her be. She has fun.”
“You just defend everything she does out of habit,” Umino insisted and tilted his head, catching the apple in his left hand.
Ando shrugged. “I do the same for you. Just yesterday, your wife was complaining about your haircut, or lack thereof, and what did I do? I said, ‘Ami’, is what I said, ‘Ami, having hair that looks like an old carpet made from rusty straw makes Umino happy, leave him be’.”
Umino smiled and twisted a copper curl around a finger. “I’ll ask Makoto to give a trim next time she comes round.”
“Good call.”
“In the meantime,” Umino said, “tell me what I’m thinking right now.”
Ando frowned. “Nothing. Has the consumption of food wiped all thoughts from your brilliant mind?”
Umino smiled and looked at the floor. “No. I thought a great many of things.”
Ando’s jaw dropped. “You learned how to block me? Nobody can block me!”
“Uh huh. I don’t think I can do it outside the palace, but inside, if I focus on it, it’s do-able. We’ll see whether it’s a transferable skill in our training session with Mamoru tomorrow. Now, any chance you have some tea about your person? Or a biscuit?”
***
The water was so hot that it sent steam spiralling towards the crystal ceiling, but Rei still felt cold. Michiru and Hiromasa had left around two o’clock when icy rain had begun to fall, making the slippery tower a safety hazard. She’d been in the tub since, trying to calm her mind. She was the only one out of the three of them who hadn’t gained anything from joining their powers. Michiru reported more activity in the Deep Aqua Mirror, Hiromasa could barely hear them talk when they were up in the tower because the voices of the stars were echoing so loudly in his head, but for herself, it was complete and utter silence.
By now, Rei had gone so long without a vision that she wondered whether she could still call herself a seer. Ever since she had burned her miko uniform, she had felt her spiritual side slip away from her. Perhaps she had now lost it completely. After it all, it had been longer than she had fingers to count the years with. The thought made her shiver, raising goosebumps all across her body.
Stretching out her hand, she focused on the image of the holy fire burning brightly in her mind, but it was replaced by the image of Mars, the fire planet, so red and angry in the sky. Even underwater, a small flame bloomed in her palm like a lotus flower. At least this part of her personality was still accessible, she thought grimly as the water turned hotter.
***
In another part of town, one where new buildings had been built around tall crystals, Minako stretched and peeled herself out of bed. “Thanks, that was good,” she said, tossing her hair over her shoulder, while scanning the floor for her clothes. Her jacket was probably somewhere in the hall, as were her panties. Things had gotten heated rather quickly, which begged the question of whether she might actually still make it back to the palace before Michiru and Hiromasa left.
“What time is it?” she asked her companion, who groaned in reply before reaching for his watch.
“You’re killing me, babe.”
“Doesn’t answer my question,” she singsonged and reached for her dress. Pulling the green fabric over her head, she located one shoe near the door and the other halfway under the bed. Slipping into the pumps with the same ease she slid into her ballet flats, she turned to him, smiling. “So: time?”
“Three in the morning.”
Too late to catch them, then. But she might find Ando still awake or get to have some tea with Ami before the doctor left for her early morning shift at the hospital. “Right, gotta go. Again, thanks. Let’s do this again sometime.”
“You don’t even know my phone number, let alone my name,” he grumbled, but reached for her anyway. Allowing him to pull her close for one more kiss, Minako smiled against his mouth.
“But I know where you live, don’t I?”
***
Having located her missing clothes and shamelessly put them on again in the elevator, Minako stepped out of the building. The cold rain smacked her in the face and she quickly broke into a run. If she turned the corner, she could transform in the dark alley behind the building and then teleport home. It would get her out of the rain and cold. What was wrong with the seasons that March felt like November?
Suddenly, an umbrella was placed over her head. She knew without turning around whose it was, and knew that he’d been waiting here for her. What she didn’t know was how he’d found out where she was, but then again, he too had secret channels of information he refused to share.
“Not exactly weather-appropriate clothing,” Takeshi murmured and Minako found herself smiling despite herself.
“I don’t tend to think about the weather when I dress to go out.”
“I know.”
They turned the corner and walked down the alley in silence, the sound of her heels muffled by the rain. She sidestepped a larger puddle, but knew that unless they teleported soon, she would return home with wet feet and ruined shoes.
“Michiru has reason to believe that the attack on the palace will take place sooner rather than later,” Takeshi shared, sounding thoughtful, and Minako stopped dead in her tracks.
“When?”
“Next month.”
“Do Hiromasa’s visions corroborate that?”
“No. He cannot put a time stamp on any warnings he has picked up.”
“Rei’s?”
“As you very well know, she doesn’t have any.” Takeshi sized her up, readying himself for battle. She knew what was coming, but spared a second to wonder why she hadn’t found him so easy to read when they had still been together. Back then, he had been a mystery to her. Now he was an open book.
“We need that list, Minako.”
She gave him a hard look, her blue eyes almost black in the night. Tucked into the side of her bra, the small USB-stick she had surreptitiously picked up as she had made her way out of the apartment burned into her skin. “And then what? We go and take them down one by one? They are political activists, Takeshi, not magical terrorists. They are on the fringe of Wiseman’s movement, not at its core. Trust me on this. There is nothing to be gained here.”
“They are the largest anti-Crystal group in the country. They are the only lead we have.” He was like an alligator, stubbornly sinking his teeth into his bounty, dragging it under water to drown. She had no hope to convince him that the list wasn’t useful, so she switched tactics.
“Even if I had a list of their members, and even if they were stupid enough to keep such a list in the first place---”
“We both know that you picked up the list tonight,” he cut across her. His tone left no room for denial. She felt a blush creeping up her cheeks and hated herself for that. She hadn’t slept with the man because he was a member of the group, hadn’t fallen into his bed because that was the only way to gain access to his apartment. She could get in and out of any place she wanted without its owner ever knowing. No, she had done it because she wanted to, because a hint of danger tasted so sweet, because sometimes, another person’s touch was the only thing that made her feel alive. Because she was still looking for some part of herself that she had lost. But she would not stoop so low as to explain herself to Takeshi. She never needed to explain herself to this man ever again.
“We need to move into action. Now. Give me the stick.” It was more command than request, and just like that, the feeling of unwanted shame dissolved.
“No.”
Refusing him came easy to her, and it was even easier because she knew that Usagi would back her every step of the way. What Minako needed was time alone with Umino. Him she could give the list. He would go through them one by one, see if one or all or nobody had something to hide without them ever knowing. In Umino’s slender hands, all 293 members of the Anti-Crystal Alliance were safe. Takeshi would not hesitate to have them arrested on some premature notion of danger; and if he felt one of them was a threat to Mamoru, then Minako had no doubts that that person would never leave the prison alive. A little accident, tragic circumstances. She had seen it happen more than once in the Silver Millennium.
“This is not the right time to protect your lover,” Takeshi interrupted her thoughts. “We all have to make sacrifices, Minako. I’m sure you can find someone else to warm your bed.”
It was just a flash, a lightning rod of anger coursing through her veins. Her home, her dog, her love. Sacrifices made. Sacrifices paid.
“I think we all made enough of those a lifetime ago, Kunzite,” Minako answered, aiming to wound and unable to stop herself. “And if that is jealousy I hear, I recommend you take a good look at your relationship because clearly, there must be something missing there. Does Setsuna even know where you are?”
“Don’t push it,” Takeshi whispered.
“Why? Afraid of the truth? Repression is nobody’s friend, hasn’t anyone ever told you that?”
Her was holding the umbrella in such a forceful grip that his fingers turned white. Around them, the rain came down harder.
“You, my friend,” Minako continued, her voice as icy as the drops that fell against her bare legs, “do not get to call me a whore.”
When the streetlights further down the street flickered, Minako slowly snapped out of it. She broke their eye contact to look at them. On, off, on, off. And she thought he had gotten that particular issue under control. Opposite her, he exhaled deeply, and she knew he was forcing his powers back. She’d have to talk to Umino; Takeshi clearly needed more time to practise his magic, and not only with Mamoru. Ando would make a good training partner: he could raise Takeshi’s temper easily enough, and there was little love lost between the two anyway.
It brought her right back to the months following their break-up, the complete radio silence, when every flickering streetlight made her think of Takeshi and Ando raged more at the perceived injustice than Minako ever did. She had never been more tired than then.
She sighed, suddenly aware of the rain and the cold and the lateness of the hour. Sometimes it felt that she spend most of this life fighting with a man who was supposed to be her ally. It was time to go home, to her own bed. And perhaps time to offer a hint of an apology. Rubbing her hands up and down her arms to counter the cold, she looked at him again. “Look, I am not protecting any lover of mine. I don’t even know his name, but I don’t believe that we should go after the wrong people just so that we can go after someone.”
“You are a fool,” he replied, his voice hard. He was not accepting any apology of hers, not when she had wounded him so gravely and so deliberately. She knew him well enough to have expected nothing else.
But why did he always have to make things so difficult? She opened her small purse and retrieved her henshin pen. She was done here. “And you are becoming more paranoid than you were even back then. Leaflets and posters and public protest do not constitute a risk to Usagi's and Mamoru's safety. Now go home to your girlfriend and leave me in peace, Takeshi. When I have viable information, I will pass it on. But I’ll be the judge of when and what that is.”
He stared at her, and for a second, just a second, she was sure that he would hit her. Hit her or kiss her. And both of them knew that the latter would be more fatal than the former, which was shocking enough in and of itself. But he turned around instead, walking out of the alley in long, measures strides, leaving her in the rain.
For a second, his expensive black trenchcoat billowed just like the cape he used to wear.
And then he was gone and the rain continued to fall.
***End of Chapter 11***
A/N 2: The "you don't get to call me a whore" line is borrowed from an early episode of Grey's Anatomy. I just added the rain and the doom.
Summary: Crystal Tokyo has arrived. So has Ando Tanaka.
Warnings: Oh, lots and lots of swearing. But other than that, tame.
A/N: As always, mountains of thanks to the wonderful charliechaplin2, who gently reminds me that this tale is to be continued. In that sense, consider this the tick tick tick before the boom.
The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard.
~ verse in the Katha-Upanishad
***
The Crystal Palace had many towers, but one was special because not only did the armed guards never go there, for some reason they never even really thought about it. It was a white spot on the map, an unheard whisper at the edge of their minds.
And it was in this tower, or on it’s roof top terrace, to be precise, that a very secret meeting took place in the dead of the night while the winter wind raced around the spires.
“Man, it’s cold,” Hiro muttered, pulling the thick green scarf his wife had made for him over his mouth and nose. Beside him, Rei shivered in her elegant coat, clearly wishing for warmer apparel. Only Michiru seemed unfazed, but then she was (much to Hiro’s dismay) wearing a heavy fur coat, a matching hat, and fur-lined leather gloves.
“Really?” the violinist asked, sounding bored. “I’m fine.”
“Seeing how you are wearing half a polar bear, I’d be surprised if you weren’t,” Hiro replied. “Pity for the poor animal.”
Michiru smiled dryly. “It’s dyed chinchilla, Hiromasa. Polar bears are nearly extinct, which makes wearing them a little... inappropriate.”
“Chinchillas?” Hiro asked, scandalised, disbelief playing out on his big features. “They’re oversized hamsters. You’re wearing what my daughter’s school friends keep in little cages and feed carrot sticks.”
Before Michiru could answer, Rei cut in. “It’s midnight, we need to start.” She couldn’t stand Hiromasa’s and Michiru’s bickering at the best of times, but in the middle of the night up on an icy tower, it was intolerable.
Michiru sighed, a dramatic little sound. “It’s a fruitless endeavour, but fine. Let’s start.” Peeling her white gloves off, and putting them into a pocket of her coat, she offered one hand to Hiro and one to Rei.
Rei reached for her, and extended her right to Hiro. Looking decidedly unhappy, the big man took the hands that were offered to him and closed his eyes. All at once, the whisper of the stars, always a background noise when he was anywhere near the palace and the Silver crystal it contained, exploded in his ears.
“It’s working,” he groaned, and let go of Michiru’s hand. With the circle broken, the volume of the voices died down instantly. “I could hear them all.”
“Good,” Michiru said ruthlessly, and took his hand again. “Now find out what they’re saying.”
***
“How’s Rei?” Minako asked when Ando shuffled into the kitchen the next morning.
“Still sleeping. She’s completely knackered.” He yawned. “More pressing question: why do you look like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman? Before she met the Richard Gere character and stopped prostituting herself, that is.”
Minako laughed and looked down at herself. True, the tiny blue skirt, the belly bearing cropped white shirt and the thigh high boots were a dead ringer for the film’s trademark look. “Good party, long night.”
“Any new intel?” Ando asked and stole Mina’s coffee.
“I was just going to ask you the same thing.”
“You first.”
Mina nodded and took the coffee from his hands again. “My sources say that there’s a group assembling in irregular intervals at different places. No information on who’s in it, who’s behind it, but they are very anti-royalty. And the fact that they play so coy makes me think that they’re the ones who were behind the shooting last year and the planned attack on Mamoru. No idea where they will meet next, but I know that they used locations that were destroyed by crystal before. The old Museum of Modern Art, the Mugen Gauken school, even Rei’s temple.” She leaned back in the chair and began to pull her hair into a ponytail before realising she didn’t have a scrunchie or hairpin about her person. Sighing, she let it all drop again. “I’ll get surveillance in place, come up with a roster.”
“You need to get it cut,” Ando said, ignoring her statement and the niggling fear it sent racing down his spine. The last thing he wanted was for Rei to transform into haughty Sailor Mars and to spend long, cold nights watching potentially dangerous places for potentially dangerous people. Stepping behind Minako, he ruffled her hair. “Shouldn’t you have gotten a tragic break-up haircut after you and Icy Electrics called it quits?”
Smiling up at him, she shook her head. “Good God, no. Now, what did Rei, Michiru and Hiro uncover?”
“That joining their powers works. Hiro said that he could hear lots more, but there was nothing specific about upcoming attacks that we didn’t know yet. Fire, volcanos, negotiations with Wiseman, Wiseman, more Wiseman, but no specific Wiseman. Do you think he’s behind this mysterious new organisation?”
“You asked me that fifteen times before.”
“You keeping count, kiddo?”
Her face was serious. “Always.”
“So?” Ando almost wished that their new enemy was one he knew from a previous life. If they had to go against Beryl again, then at least he knew what they’d be up against. Instead, he, much like his brothers, had never met Wiseman and only knew about him as a cautionary tale of an impersonal but dangerous villain. He was going in blind, and fuck, he hated that. By the looks of it, so did Minako, who sighed. “Yes. And it scares the living daylight out of me. Because this isn’t what we thought would happen in the future.”
Trying on his old bravado as if it were a new suit, Ando squared his shoulders. “Revolution and doom version 1.0, revolution and doom version 2.0; don’t really see the difference. We’ll figure it out somehow. It’s what we have three seers for, isn’t it?”
Minako tilted her head to the side, going all quiet. Her blue eyes were knowing.
“What?” Ando asked, his voice almost steady.
“You’re as scared as I am.”
“Fuck that.”
“You are.”
And because they were all alone in the kitchen and because Minako would never tell anyone, and really, who’d believe her, dressed like that, he dropped his shoulders and admitted the truth.
***
Far from the fearful conversation in the kitchen, a little part of the palace was still peaceful. Under downy blankets, head snuggled into fluffy pillows, the Queen of Tokyo was slowly waking up, stretching her legs as she did so.
Yawning, Usagi rolled to her side. She loved those winter mornings. It was stupidly early, Mamoru had left hours ago and the last time she checked (which was a blissful eight and a half hours ago), it had been snowing like crazy outside. No reason to get up at all.
In her sleep-addled mind, the Queen of Tokyo didn’t question that she wasn’t alone in her bed. There were two people there, one snoring loudly, the other breathing quietly. The smell of Old Spice had let her know that the snorer to her right was Hiro, while the hint of jasmin flowers in the air identified her other surprise guest as Rei. Only Michiru had left the palace, leaving the other two seers in the care of the Queen.
Smiling, and sinking back to sleep, Usagi snuggled closer to Rei and pressed her eternally cold feet against Hiro’s socked ones. The world could wait a little while.
***
“My husband is sleeping in my friend’s bed,” Makoto confided with a laugh while adjusting the dials on the babyphone. Yoshi had the measles at the moment and had spent most of the night crying. It was a small blessing that he was taking a late morning nap now, otherwise the poor dear would be cranky all day.
Takeshi smiled. “Usagi?”
“Who else?”
“That’s alright then.” He took a sip of the tea Makoto had made for him. Visiting Makoto, whether it was at the café or here in her home, was always a treat for him. “This is good, thank you.”
“You’re welcome. How was the Emperor’s Ball?”
Takeshi frowned. “Haven’t we spoken since?”
“No. Which is a shame,” Makoto went on, “because I hear a lot happened at that ball.”
“It did indeed. Mamoru and Usagi charmed everyone, press included. Their ascension will be smooth.”
“That’s not what I meant. I hear you and Setsuna danced. In public.”
“Of course. She is an excellent dancer.”
“As are you.”
“You seem surprised.”
“A little. I’ve known you for years, but I just didn’t think you were the dancing type. You didn’t dance at my wedding”
“Dancing is an art form that requires the right partner,” Takeshi said, smiling into his tea.
“And Setsuna is the right one? The one?” Makoto prodded, knowing that barring Mamoru, she was the only one who could ask Takeshi about matters as delicate and private as this. It was a shame, but Takeshi had withdrawn from Umino, perhaps feeling that his close friendship to Ando (and thus invariably Minako) made him an unsuitable confidante. And while Hiro and Takeshi were like brothers, the strength of their connection wasn’t exactly its verbosity. That left her and Mamoru, but Mamoru was ridiculously polite and reticent and would never pester Takeshi so much that he’d talk about things he hadn’t fully considered yet.
To no-one’s surprise, Takeshi’s answer was slow in coming and carefully phrased.
“I care deeply for her.”
“Does she make you happy?” Makoto asked, banishing all thoughts of Minako from her mind.
“Very,” Takeshi confided.
“Good.” Makoto said.
Takeshi put his tea down. “Provided nothing changes, we will get married next year.”
“I... Takeshi, isn’t that a bit soon?”
“It’s months away. But we have discussed it and agreed that it’s the next logical step.”
Makoto smiled, but it did not quite reach her eyes. She didn’t want to think how Minako would take the engagement. In the year since the break-up, her friend had never, not once, expressed anger at Takeshi for beginning a relationship with a fellow senshi. She had remained cool and polite, insisting that her relationship with Takeshi had been doomed from their very first encounter. The only indication that Minako was not quite as fine with the development as she made it sound was that she had steadfastly shied away from any new romance herself. Which was not to say that Minako was lonely. Pretty woman that she was, she could spend each night with a new lover, and had done just that for a while, making Makoto hugely uncomfortable. She wanted to see her friend settled and happy, not chasing the next little adventure only to forget about it the second her feet touched the ground the morning after.
“When the time comes, I would like for Minako to be fine with it,” Takeshi said, echoing Makoto’s thoughts. There was a question in his green eyes, one that Makoto did not know how to answer.
“Oh Takeshi,” she murmured, offering him a cookie, “I’d like that too.”
***
Time passed slowly this winter, hiding any and all signs of spring. The mansion in the outskirts of Tokyo had lost its snowy cover, but no flowers bloomed and March advanced as icily as if it were December.
Even inside, little warmth was to be found, as three old friends once again discussed a sore point.
“I hate that you never tells us anything,” Haruka raged, pacing back and forth in the living-room while Michiru and Setsuna sat on the couch. It was a testament to the hour and the occasion that both women had resorted to hard drinks: iced imported vodka from Sweden for Setsuna, and the driest of all gin and tonics for Michiru.
“Love, sit down,” Michiru said, sounding weary. Only very expensive and expertly applied make-up kept her from looking as tired as she felt.
“Michiru, it would be so much easier if Setsuna would go forth and, and---”
“Have a look?” the senshi of time supplied, arching a brow.
“Yes!”
Michiru put her glass down on the crystal coaster. “You are being silly, Haruka. It doesn’t work like that.”
“I get why she can’t tell the others, they’re no more than babies, the men especially, but we are warriors. One piece of definitive intelligence and we can go in and eradicate the problem.”
“If I go and ‘have a look’, events will change. The ‘look’ will be worthless,” Setsuna explained. To think she had given up on an evening with Takeshi for this...Suppressing a frown, she went on. “We can only go by the information Rei, Michiru and Hiro gleam and on the intelligence Minako gathers from her spy network. We know where the group has met, and Ami and Umino are mapping the city to locate the probable future meeting points.”
“It’s not enough,” Haruka exclaimed, raising her voice. “Don’t tell me you can’t feel it. It’s in the air, all around us. We are moving towards something, getting closer every day. And we are helpless!”
Massaging her temples, Michiru groaned. “Keep your voice down, Haruka.”
Haruka came to a stop, towering over Michiru. “Night after night, you are up on this roof, and nothing comes of it. For months now, Michiru, months! You see visions of Crystal Tokyo’s apocalypse, the same ones the Deep Aqua Mirror already showed you, Hiromasa hears voices warning him about a fire and about Wiseman, how wonderfully helpful, and Rei hasn’t seen or heard anything worthwhile. It’s. Not. Working.” Bursting with frustration, Haruka looked for something to throw against the wall. Without batting a lash, Michiru drained her drink and offered Haruka the glass. “But mind the paintings,” she warned. The last time they had this conversation, Haruka had become so enraged that she had tossed one of Michiru’s prized antique Greek statuettes against the Monet, destroying both.
“It is all we have,” Setsuna reiterated, ignoring the lovers’ spat. “We are keeping a close watch on Usagi and Mamoru, limiting the time they spent outside the palace, monitoring any and all anti-crystal movement in the media and trying to counter it with good PR, but at the end of the day, there is nothing we can do. We either find Wiseman and his attackers, or we wait until they find their way to us. I don’t like it anymore than you do.”
“You sound like your boyfriend,” Haruka bit out, turning away from Michiru.
Setsuna took a sip from her drink, ice cubes clinking in the heavy glass. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You can take that as whatever the---”
“Language, Haruka,” Michiru interrupted.
Haruka groaned and slapped her hand against her forehead in a gesture of sheer frustration.
“And that, my love,” Michiru said sweetly, “is exactly how I feel too.”
***
Sitting cross-legged on the floor of the empty throne room in the earliest hours of the morning, Umino was thinking. He was thinking hard, he’d been thinking long, and much like the three outer senshi, he wasn’t getting anywhere.
He’d started weeks ago by compiling the information on the future attacks in a chart. Unless Wiseman and his group found a pyromancer somewhere, they would need tanks and military firearms to wreak the havoc Michiru had seen in her mirror over two years ago. No firearms or tanks had been stolen in recent years, as a quick and ever so slightly illegal dig in the military communications intranet had shown. That gave them some time.
Next, he’d attempted to construct a timeline for Crystal Tokyo as it would have been had the shitennou not appeared. But precise information was hard to come by. Usagi and Mamoru knew little more than that at some point in the middle of their otherwise peaceful establishment of the monarchy, the Black Moon clan attacked, Chibi-Usa stole the Silver Crystal, travelled to the past and they fixed things from there. They couldn’t even date their daughter’s conception and birth any closer than a few decades.
Of course, the girl would have been the ideal person to ask, but Chibi-Usa had not been seen since the shitennou had returned. They had no way of mapping how far off track the future had gone and what they could do to fix it. Frustrating them further, Ami’s crystal research had run into a dead end as well. His wife had not taken this intellectual defeat well: she spent as much time in the hospital as possible, trying to make up for what she perceived as her great failure. Consoling her had been impossible, so Umino too focused on his work, but the only useful thing he had come up with in the last three days was an accelerated training schedule. Twice a week, senshi and shitennou were secretly working on their powers. Only Rei, Michiru and Hiro were excused because of their nightly trips to the roof. He’d synchronised the training schedule with Minako’s surveillance roster, but really, that was all he could do. The palace’s protection was fully optimised as long as Umino was within its walls for at least three hours a day to do what he called ‘maintenance’ and Ando called ‘walking around, touching walls and looking like an idiot’. Umino chuckled at the thought.
“I call it walking around like an idiot because you are walking around, looking like an idiot,” Ando said, bending over Umino’s shoulder to put a plate with a soggy sandwich on the floor in front of him. “And FYI: we have rooms with actual chairs and desks. You don’t have to sit on the floor.”
“When did you come in?” Umino asked, blinking.
“About five minutes ago, Deep Thought. Speaking of which: interesting thought process. I agree, getting Chibi-Usa as an informant would be great, but we can’t. Unless we get Setsuna to travel to a point in the past where Chibi-Usa from the future is currently at. And we both know she won’t do it, not for something as mundane as gathering information.”
“She’s right,” Umino answered, and reached for the sandwich, realising he hadn’t eaten all day. He pulled the bread apart to check what Ando put inside and was pleased to find mustard, cheddar, lettuce and pastrami.
“She’s a crusty---”
“Ando,” Umino said warningly, the stern tone somewhat softened by his rapturous look as he bit into the sandwich.
“Bitch,” Ando finished as Umino swallowed, and sat down next to his friend. “She’s a bitch. Don’t tell me she’s not. Because she fucking is.”
Umino scowled.
“Oh, let me count the ways,” Ando said. “For one,” he began, counting along his fingers, “she pulled that stunt with me all those years ago, teleporting me to the battle zone of the Moon. Two, and that counts infinitely more, she’s been absolutely useless and refuses to let us go to the future to have a peek. Three, she’s stuck up. Makes her the perfect match for our dear Minister, but personally, there’s not enough fine wine in the whole world to make this woman palatable.”
Biting off more and chewing it with vigour, Umino shrugged. “That is a very long, convoluted and rude way of saying that you are scared of the future and resent her for hurting Minako,” he said when he had polished off the whole sandwich in under a minute.
“Minako is not hurt,” Ando insisted on auto-pilot, the denial more lip service than anything else, and pulled a chocolate bar from the breast pocket of his jumper, offering it to Umino in an offhand way. “She’s fine. Fun and exciting life, that girl has, much better than anything Icy Electrics could have ever offered her.”
“She may not hurt, but she was hurting. There is a difference there,” Umino replied and greedily reached for the chocolate. He really was starving.
“This is not an intellectual exercise, Umino,” Ando scolded his friend and procured an apple out of thin air, putting it right smack on the top of Umino’s head.
“I just don’t think that Minako will get over Takeshi by sleeping with... well, whoever she sleeps with.”
“Leave her be. She has fun.”
“You just defend everything she does out of habit,” Umino insisted and tilted his head, catching the apple in his left hand.
Ando shrugged. “I do the same for you. Just yesterday, your wife was complaining about your haircut, or lack thereof, and what did I do? I said, ‘Ami’, is what I said, ‘Ami, having hair that looks like an old carpet made from rusty straw makes Umino happy, leave him be’.”
Umino smiled and twisted a copper curl around a finger. “I’ll ask Makoto to give a trim next time she comes round.”
“Good call.”
“In the meantime,” Umino said, “tell me what I’m thinking right now.”
Ando frowned. “Nothing. Has the consumption of food wiped all thoughts from your brilliant mind?”
Umino smiled and looked at the floor. “No. I thought a great many of things.”
Ando’s jaw dropped. “You learned how to block me? Nobody can block me!”
“Uh huh. I don’t think I can do it outside the palace, but inside, if I focus on it, it’s do-able. We’ll see whether it’s a transferable skill in our training session with Mamoru tomorrow. Now, any chance you have some tea about your person? Or a biscuit?”
***
The water was so hot that it sent steam spiralling towards the crystal ceiling, but Rei still felt cold. Michiru and Hiromasa had left around two o’clock when icy rain had begun to fall, making the slippery tower a safety hazard. She’d been in the tub since, trying to calm her mind. She was the only one out of the three of them who hadn’t gained anything from joining their powers. Michiru reported more activity in the Deep Aqua Mirror, Hiromasa could barely hear them talk when they were up in the tower because the voices of the stars were echoing so loudly in his head, but for herself, it was complete and utter silence.
By now, Rei had gone so long without a vision that she wondered whether she could still call herself a seer. Ever since she had burned her miko uniform, she had felt her spiritual side slip away from her. Perhaps she had now lost it completely. After it all, it had been longer than she had fingers to count the years with. The thought made her shiver, raising goosebumps all across her body.
Stretching out her hand, she focused on the image of the holy fire burning brightly in her mind, but it was replaced by the image of Mars, the fire planet, so red and angry in the sky. Even underwater, a small flame bloomed in her palm like a lotus flower. At least this part of her personality was still accessible, she thought grimly as the water turned hotter.
***
In another part of town, one where new buildings had been built around tall crystals, Minako stretched and peeled herself out of bed. “Thanks, that was good,” she said, tossing her hair over her shoulder, while scanning the floor for her clothes. Her jacket was probably somewhere in the hall, as were her panties. Things had gotten heated rather quickly, which begged the question of whether she might actually still make it back to the palace before Michiru and Hiromasa left.
“What time is it?” she asked her companion, who groaned in reply before reaching for his watch.
“You’re killing me, babe.”
“Doesn’t answer my question,” she singsonged and reached for her dress. Pulling the green fabric over her head, she located one shoe near the door and the other halfway under the bed. Slipping into the pumps with the same ease she slid into her ballet flats, she turned to him, smiling. “So: time?”
“Three in the morning.”
Too late to catch them, then. But she might find Ando still awake or get to have some tea with Ami before the doctor left for her early morning shift at the hospital. “Right, gotta go. Again, thanks. Let’s do this again sometime.”
“You don’t even know my phone number, let alone my name,” he grumbled, but reached for her anyway. Allowing him to pull her close for one more kiss, Minako smiled against his mouth.
“But I know where you live, don’t I?”
***
Having located her missing clothes and shamelessly put them on again in the elevator, Minako stepped out of the building. The cold rain smacked her in the face and she quickly broke into a run. If she turned the corner, she could transform in the dark alley behind the building and then teleport home. It would get her out of the rain and cold. What was wrong with the seasons that March felt like November?
Suddenly, an umbrella was placed over her head. She knew without turning around whose it was, and knew that he’d been waiting here for her. What she didn’t know was how he’d found out where she was, but then again, he too had secret channels of information he refused to share.
“Not exactly weather-appropriate clothing,” Takeshi murmured and Minako found herself smiling despite herself.
“I don’t tend to think about the weather when I dress to go out.”
“I know.”
They turned the corner and walked down the alley in silence, the sound of her heels muffled by the rain. She sidestepped a larger puddle, but knew that unless they teleported soon, she would return home with wet feet and ruined shoes.
“Michiru has reason to believe that the attack on the palace will take place sooner rather than later,” Takeshi shared, sounding thoughtful, and Minako stopped dead in her tracks.
“When?”
“Next month.”
“Do Hiromasa’s visions corroborate that?”
“No. He cannot put a time stamp on any warnings he has picked up.”
“Rei’s?”
“As you very well know, she doesn’t have any.” Takeshi sized her up, readying himself for battle. She knew what was coming, but spared a second to wonder why she hadn’t found him so easy to read when they had still been together. Back then, he had been a mystery to her. Now he was an open book.
“We need that list, Minako.”
She gave him a hard look, her blue eyes almost black in the night. Tucked into the side of her bra, the small USB-stick she had surreptitiously picked up as she had made her way out of the apartment burned into her skin. “And then what? We go and take them down one by one? They are political activists, Takeshi, not magical terrorists. They are on the fringe of Wiseman’s movement, not at its core. Trust me on this. There is nothing to be gained here.”
“They are the largest anti-Crystal group in the country. They are the only lead we have.” He was like an alligator, stubbornly sinking his teeth into his bounty, dragging it under water to drown. She had no hope to convince him that the list wasn’t useful, so she switched tactics.
“Even if I had a list of their members, and even if they were stupid enough to keep such a list in the first place---”
“We both know that you picked up the list tonight,” he cut across her. His tone left no room for denial. She felt a blush creeping up her cheeks and hated herself for that. She hadn’t slept with the man because he was a member of the group, hadn’t fallen into his bed because that was the only way to gain access to his apartment. She could get in and out of any place she wanted without its owner ever knowing. No, she had done it because she wanted to, because a hint of danger tasted so sweet, because sometimes, another person’s touch was the only thing that made her feel alive. Because she was still looking for some part of herself that she had lost. But she would not stoop so low as to explain herself to Takeshi. She never needed to explain herself to this man ever again.
“We need to move into action. Now. Give me the stick.” It was more command than request, and just like that, the feeling of unwanted shame dissolved.
“No.”
Refusing him came easy to her, and it was even easier because she knew that Usagi would back her every step of the way. What Minako needed was time alone with Umino. Him she could give the list. He would go through them one by one, see if one or all or nobody had something to hide without them ever knowing. In Umino’s slender hands, all 293 members of the Anti-Crystal Alliance were safe. Takeshi would not hesitate to have them arrested on some premature notion of danger; and if he felt one of them was a threat to Mamoru, then Minako had no doubts that that person would never leave the prison alive. A little accident, tragic circumstances. She had seen it happen more than once in the Silver Millennium.
“This is not the right time to protect your lover,” Takeshi interrupted her thoughts. “We all have to make sacrifices, Minako. I’m sure you can find someone else to warm your bed.”
It was just a flash, a lightning rod of anger coursing through her veins. Her home, her dog, her love. Sacrifices made. Sacrifices paid.
“I think we all made enough of those a lifetime ago, Kunzite,” Minako answered, aiming to wound and unable to stop herself. “And if that is jealousy I hear, I recommend you take a good look at your relationship because clearly, there must be something missing there. Does Setsuna even know where you are?”
“Don’t push it,” Takeshi whispered.
“Why? Afraid of the truth? Repression is nobody’s friend, hasn’t anyone ever told you that?”
Her was holding the umbrella in such a forceful grip that his fingers turned white. Around them, the rain came down harder.
“You, my friend,” Minako continued, her voice as icy as the drops that fell against her bare legs, “do not get to call me a whore.”
When the streetlights further down the street flickered, Minako slowly snapped out of it. She broke their eye contact to look at them. On, off, on, off. And she thought he had gotten that particular issue under control. Opposite her, he exhaled deeply, and she knew he was forcing his powers back. She’d have to talk to Umino; Takeshi clearly needed more time to practise his magic, and not only with Mamoru. Ando would make a good training partner: he could raise Takeshi’s temper easily enough, and there was little love lost between the two anyway.
It brought her right back to the months following their break-up, the complete radio silence, when every flickering streetlight made her think of Takeshi and Ando raged more at the perceived injustice than Minako ever did. She had never been more tired than then.
She sighed, suddenly aware of the rain and the cold and the lateness of the hour. Sometimes it felt that she spend most of this life fighting with a man who was supposed to be her ally. It was time to go home, to her own bed. And perhaps time to offer a hint of an apology. Rubbing her hands up and down her arms to counter the cold, she looked at him again. “Look, I am not protecting any lover of mine. I don’t even know his name, but I don’t believe that we should go after the wrong people just so that we can go after someone.”
“You are a fool,” he replied, his voice hard. He was not accepting any apology of hers, not when she had wounded him so gravely and so deliberately. She knew him well enough to have expected nothing else.
But why did he always have to make things so difficult? She opened her small purse and retrieved her henshin pen. She was done here. “And you are becoming more paranoid than you were even back then. Leaflets and posters and public protest do not constitute a risk to Usagi's and Mamoru's safety. Now go home to your girlfriend and leave me in peace, Takeshi. When I have viable information, I will pass it on. But I’ll be the judge of when and what that is.”
He stared at her, and for a second, just a second, she was sure that he would hit her. Hit her or kiss her. And both of them knew that the latter would be more fatal than the former, which was shocking enough in and of itself. But he turned around instead, walking out of the alley in long, measures strides, leaving her in the rain.
For a second, his expensive black trenchcoat billowed just like the cape he used to wear.
And then he was gone and the rain continued to fall.
***End of Chapter 11***
A/N 2: The "you don't get to call me a whore" line is borrowed from an early episode of Grey's Anatomy. I just added the rain and the doom.